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Jewish Students of the First Grade of the Tarbut School, Vilna, Lithuania 1920
Jewish Students of the First Grade of the Tarbut School, Vilna, Lithuania 1920

The Jewish Community of Vilnius

Vilnius

Also known as Vilna

In Lithuanian Vilnius, in Polish Wilno, in Russian Vilna, in Yiddish Vilne, capital city of Lithuania. From 1323 capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, between the two World Wars, a district town in Poland, then capital of the Lithuanian S.S.R. from 1940 until 1991. Called by East European Jewry, especially in the modern period, the "Jerusalem of Lithuania" (Yerushalayim de-Lita).

Early History

The first information of an organized Jewish community in Vilna dates from 1568, when it was ordered to pay the poll tax. In February 1633 the Jews of Vilna were granted a charter of privileges permitting them to engage in all branches of commerce, distilling, and any crafts not subject to the guild organizations, but restricting their place of residence in the city. During the first half of the 17th century the Vilna community was augmented by arrivals from Prague, Frankfort, and Polish towns, who included wealthy emigrants and scholars. In this period about 3,000 Jewish residents are recorded out of a total population of some 15,000. Although the Vilna community, now an important Jewish entity, claimed the status of a principal community, or "Community Head of the Courts" (Kehillah Rosh Beth Din), within the organizational framework of the Council of Lithuania (Vaad Lita), the status was not conceded until 1652. During the uprising against Russia in 1794 a number of Vilna Jews demonstrated their loyalty to Poland in the fighting and the Kahal made contributions to the participants in the uprising. After the conquest of the city by the Russians, however, the Jewish position in commerce and crafts improved.

A Center of Torah Learning
Vilna had already become a preeminent center for rabbinical studies by the beginning of the 17th century. Among the scholars born in Vilna were Joshua Hoeschel Ben Joseph and Shabbetai Ha-Kohen, who served as dayyan of the community. The Rabbi of Vilna in the middle of the 17th century was Moses B. Isaac Judah Lima. Among the scholars of Vilna in the second half of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th were R. Moses, called Kremer, his son-in-law Joseph, author of Rosh Yosef, Halakhic and Aggadic novellas; R. Baruch Kahana, known as Baruch Charif; the grammarian Azriel and his two sons Nisan and Elijah, and Zvi Hirsch Kaidanover. From the second half of the 18th century the personality and activities of Eliyahu ben Solomon Zalman, the Gaon of Vilna, who attracted numerous disciples, had a lasting impact on Vilna Jewry. The circle thus formed became the most stimulating religious and spiritual center there and had a profound influence on Judaism, especially in the domains of the Halakhah and Kabbalah.

Opposition to Chassidism
At the end of the 18th century, under the influence of the Gaon, Vilna became the center of the way of life and system of religious study followed by the Mitnaggedim and the focus of their struggle against Hasidism. In 1772 the Kahal disbanded the congregation formed in Vilna by the Hasidim and issued a ban or excommunication against them.

Bitter opposition to Hasidism continued throughout the lifetime of the Gaon. Nevertheless, groups of Hasidim still assembled clandestinely in Vilna and formed their own minyanim, and after 1790 the movement even found support among members of the Kahal. In 1798 the Vilna Kahal was prohibited from imposing fines or corporal punishment for religious offenses. When the Hasidic leader Shneor Zalman of Lyady was denounced to the authorities and imprisoned, 22 Hasidim from Vilna and its environs were also incarcerated, although afterward released. The Kahal elders and dayyanim were dismissed from office in 1799, and the Kahal accounts were examined. A new Kahal was then chosen from among the Hasidim, which controlled the Vilna community for over a year. Subsequently the two parties became reconciled and a new Kahal was elected with representatives of both parties. The Hasidim were permitted to form their own congregations.

The 19th Century
Vilna's preeminence as the seat of Jewish learning continued in the 19th century. As an important center of Haskalah, it attracted many Hebrew writers. When the government commenced its policy of Russification of the Jews, it made Vilna a center of its activities. Max Lilienthal was sent there in 1842 to encourage the establishment of modern schools and in 1847 a government sponsored Rabbinical seminary was established.

The restriction limiting Jewish residence to certain streets in Vilna was abrogated under Alexander I in 1861. It was in this period that the first Jewish socialists in Russia began to be active in the official Rabbinical seminary, among them Aaron Samuel Liebermann and his associates. Anti-Jewish riots took place in 1881 when a band of military conscripts attacked Jewish shops. The Jewish butchers, who organized themselves to oppose the attackers, turned them over to the police. The 1897 census shows 63,831 Jewish inhabitants, 41.9% of the total population. The congested conditions and increasing unemployment led to large-scale emigration. Large numbers left for the United States and South Africa, and a few went to Palestine.

The First Half of the 20th Century
Vilna became a transit center and asylum for Jewish refugees from the vicinity during World War 1. Under German occupation lack of food and discriminatory levies on the Jewish population made conditions increasingly difficult.
The situation was not improved after the war when the struggle between the Poles and Lithuanians for the possession of Vilna (1919-20) entailed frequent changes of government. In April 1919, 80 Jews were massacred by Polish troops.

The inter-war period from 1922 to 1939 was a time of fruitful and manifold social and cultural activities for Vilna Jewry. This period saw the establishment of a network of elementary and secondary schools in which Hebrew was either the language of instruction or the principal language, and of Hebrew and Yiddish teachers' seminaries and trade schools. Vilna was a world center for Yiddish culture. The YIVO Research Institute for Yiddish language and culture was founded in Vilna in 1924.

The Holocaust Period
With the outbreak of World War 2, Soviet Russia invaded Vilna and in October 1939 ceded it to Lithuania. Jewish refugees from divided Poland - The German-occupied part and the Soviet-occupied one - found refuge in Vilna. In June 1940, Lithuania was annexed to the USSR the Soviet authorities closed down Hebrew cultural institutions and Zionist organizations. All Yiddish press was replaced by the Communist party's organ. Many Jews, active Zionists, Bundists, and "Bourgeois", were exiled in 1941 to the Soviet interior and many were confined in camps there.

On June 24, 1941, the Germans entered Vilna and were welcomed by the Lithuanian population with flowers and cheers. Persecution of Vilna's Jewish population (approximately 80,000) began immediately. Prior to the establishment of the ghetto, about 35,000 Jews were murdered in Ponary. In January 1942 the various political organizations in the ghetto created a unified fighting organization, F.P.O. (Fareynigte Partizaner Organizatsye), commanded by Yitzchak Wittenberg, Joseph Glazman, and Abba Kovner. In the beginning, the F.P.O. decided to fight in the ghetto rather than escape to join the partisans in the forests. In addition to smuggling in ammunition, the F.P.O. carried out acts of sabotage, issued an underground bulletin, and forged documents. On July 5, 1943, Wittenberg, the commander of the F.P.O., was arrested. While he was being led out of the ghetto, the F.P.O. attacked the guard and freed him. Realizing that a price would have to be paid for this act of defiance, the underground ordered mobilization of all its units. The Germans issued an ultimatum for Wittenberg to surrender by morning or the ghetto would be wiped out. After hours of difficult deliberation, Wittenberg surrendered himself to the Germans and was murdered by the Gestapo. The F.P.O. then decided to evacuate to the forests.

On September 1st, 1943, the Ghetto was sealed off. The F.P.O. was mobilized at once, and in the morning the German soldiers entered. Fighting erupted in several areas of the ghetto. Jacob Gens, Chief of the Jewish Police successfully petitioned the Germans to leave. Gens was the ghetto's most controversial figure. Some condemned him as an outright German collaborator, while others regarded him as a man who fulfilled German orders in an effort to save as many Jews as possible. Accused by the Gestapo of aiding the underground, he was shot on September 15, 1943. During the first four days of September 1943, while 8,000 more Jews were deported to labor camps in Estonia, 200 fighters left the ghetto to join the partisans. On September 15, 1943, the ghetto was again surrounded, but the Germans withdrew when they learned that the remaining F.P.O. fighters were again mobilized for battle. On September 23 the Jews were ordered to prepare for the final deportation, which would liquidate the ghetto.

It is estimated that approximately 100,000 Jews from Vilna and the vicinity perished in the Vilna ghetto.

After World War 2
After the Soviet army liberated Lithuania (July 12, 1944) about 6,000 survivors from the forests and other places assembled in the city. In the 1959 census 16,354 Jews (6.96% of the total population) were registered in Vilna, 326 of whom declared Yiddish to be their mother tongue. In 1970 the number of Jews was estimated much higher. The only synagogue left generally served a small number of elderly Jews, except on holidays, particularly on Simchat Torah, when many hundreds congregated, including younger people. After the Six-Day War in the Middle East (1967) identification with Israel became more pronounced, especially among the young, in spite of the official anti-Israel campaign, and Jews from Vilna were among those who protested against the refusal to grant them exit permits to Israel.

Revival of Jewish Life in Vilna
In August 23, 1988, when the downfall of the Soviet regime in Lithuania could already be sensed, a small group of Jews, headed by Rina Zilberman, Gregori (Grisha) Alpernas, Hirsch Belitzky, and an American citizen, founded an organization named "Tkumah". Their aim was to revive Jewish culture amongst Lithuanian Jewry and encourage them to make Aliyah.

On September 26, 1988 "Tkumah" organized a march to Ponary, the place where about 80,000 Jews from Vilna and its surroundings were murdered by the Nazis in the years 1941-44. About 2000 people participated in the march. They placed Magen David signs near each pit that had an inscription stating merely that the victims were "Soviet citizens".
"Etslenu" (אצלנו), the organ of "Tkumah", was issued clandestinely in Russian, among members, friends and other trustable individuals. They also organized lectures in Russian.

"Tkumah" also established a Hebrew studies school with four classes. The school was authorized by the KGB.

During the Soviet period, before the restoration of Lithuanian independence in 1990, there was not an organized Jewish community. Only in 1989 the first steps were undertaken towards the establishment of a new Jewish community in Lithuania by the founding of the Association of the Culture of Lithuanian Jews. As of November 1991 it became the new Jewish Community of the Jews in Lithuania. The community is governed by the Community’s Council, which is elected by the Conference along with the Chairperson of the Community. The Jewish population of Lithuania is estimated at some 5,000 (6,000 in 1997), most of them living in Vilna.

Cultural Activities
The community is active in a number of fields, among them a special attention is given to maintaining the Jewish national identity and the restoration of the religious life and of the Jewish cultural heritage. The community organizes meetings, lectures, and exhibitions dedicated to an array of subjects including Israel related topics as well as Jewish holidays. Remembering the Holocaust victims remains a top priority of the Jewish community: there are over 200 places of mass extermination on the Lithuanian territory that need to be cared for. Each year solemn ceremonies are held on September 23, the Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust in Lithuania, at the 9th Fort in Kaunas and in Ponary, the sites of the most terrible mass murders of Jews.

The Jewish Gaon State Museum, founded in 1989, has also a permanent exhibition on the Holocaust and among various temporary exhibitions “The Jews of Lithuania in the Fight against Nazism” was opened in 2000 to mark the 55th anniversary of the victory against the Nazis. The list of the Vilna ghetto prisoners was published in a new book.
Of the cultural institutions and organizations a special mention should be made of the Jewish Cultural Club that attracts Jewish and non-Jewish audiences, of Ilan, a children and youth club, and of Abi men zet zich, a senior citizens club.

The Jewish community publishes the Jerusalem of Lithuania - a four-language periodical in Yiddish, Lithuanian, English and Russian reporting the events in the life of the community with a special emphasis on the cultural aspects.

Education
Today, again there are Jewish schools in Vilna: The Shalom Aleichem State School has some 200 students. Its curriculum includes in addition to the general subjects, the study of the Hebrew language, the Bible, and the history of the Jewish people. The Chabad community in Vilna runs a private religious school.

Welfare Program
The Jewish community runs an extensive welfare program in support of its needy members. These are mainly pensioners who either remained alone after their relatives had emigrated to other countries or had been severely affected by the economic crisis that followed the collapse of the U.S.R.R. The aid program includes distribution of food, clothes, financial support, and medical care as well as other free of charge services, among them housecleaning, laundry, etc. The welfare program has been possible thanks to the generous assistance of various Jewish organizations, especially the American Joint Distribution Committee, and private donors.

Center of Jewish Political Activity
Vilna became an active meeting ground for Jewish socialists in the 1890s. A convention of Jewish social democrats was held in 1895, while in 1897 the Bund Labor Party held its founding convention and Vilna became the center of its activities. At the beginning of the 20th century Vilna became the center of the Zionist movement in Russia, and saw the rise of a flourishing Hebrew and Yiddish literature. One of the first societies of the Hibbat Zion movement was founded there; Chovevei Zion conventions were held in Vilna. Theodor Herzl, who visited Vilna in 1903, was given an enthusiastic popular reception. The central bureau of the Zionist organization in Russia functioned in Vilna between 1905 and 1911 and for some time the Po’alei Zion Party made Vilna its headquarters. The well-known Zionist leader Shmaryahu Levin was elected as deputy for Vilna to the Duma (Russian Parliament). Orthodox circles were organized under the leadership of R. Chayyim Ozer Grodzenski, and afterward were amalgamated with the Agudat Israel.

Moses ben Mordechai Meisel (c.1760-1838), torah scholar, author, maskil. Born in Vilna, Lithuania.

In his youth Meisel was one of the pupils closest to the Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, the.Vilna Gaon. Later, he came under the influence of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady, the founder of Habad and he joined the Hassidic movement. In consequence, fearing persecution by the conservative Vilna religious establishment, Meisel fled to Germany. He had no desire to participate in the bitter controversies which divided Polish Jewry at that time. In Germany he became familiar with German literature and studied the writings of Moses Mendelssohn and other members of the Haskalah movement. During the Napoleonic Wars, Meisel conferred with representatives of the French government on several occasions. Shneur Zalman convinced him to stop these talks; this aroused the suspicions of Napoleon's aides who were convinced that he was collaborating with the Russians and Meisel was compelled to flee. He went to Eretz Israel and in 1813 lived in Hebron. He returned to Lithuania only after the French defeat. During the 1820s he went once more to Hebron, and in his last years he was closely associated with Sir Moses Montefiore.

Moses Meisel's poem Shirat Mosheh (Shklov, 1788) is based on the 613 laws which govern Jewish life, each line of the poem begins with a letter from the Ten Commandments.
Meisel died in Hebron in c.1838.

Zemach Shabad (Szabad) (1864-1935), physician, communal leader, and publicist, one of the heads of the Vilna community. Born in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). In 1881, Shabad moved with his family to Moscow, where he completed his studies in medicine at Moscow University (1884-1889). In 1894 he settled in Vilna, devoting himself to work in a hospital of which he eventually became a director.

Active in many communal organizations, Shabad for many years served as chairman of YEKOPO [Lithuanian Jewish Relief Committee]. He was active in promoting ORT, the world-wide organization whuich supported vocational training for Jewish youth, in Vilna and was its chairman until 1925. His also founded the Vilna branch of OZE [The society for the Protection of the Health of Jews], which was affiliated to the national organization of TOZ. The committee organized health clinics, the spreading of health care information and awareness of preventative medicine amongst the Jews of northern Europe. In this connection he wrote numerous articles about medical care and research in Folksgesund, the magazine of TOZ.

Shabad was a delegate at a conference of the Haskalah movement at St. Petersburg. A convinced socialist he participated in the 1905 Russian Revolution and as a result was exiled for three years. During World War I, Shabad worked to protect Jews in the battle areas from epidemics and hunger. In 1919-1920 he was president of the Vilna Jewish community council, and between 1919 and 1927 was a member of the Vilna municipal council. He established evening schools for women.

Politically he was affiliated with the Folkist Party (Folkspartei) in Poland which was founded after the 1905 pogroms in the Russian Empire – the party sought to achieve cultural and national autonomy for Jews in the Diaspora. In economic matters the party was liberal, secular and democratic. He was personally close to the party leadership. After the 1926 split in the party Shabad, as head of the dissidents whose center was in Vilna, made contact with the minority bloc, and in 1928 was elected a member of the Polish Senate. There he fought manifestations of anti-Semitism and discrimination by the government. At the end of his life he became close to the neo-Territorialist movement. Supporting Jewish cultural and national autonomy, and as one of the active members of the Central Yiddish School Organization (CYSHO), he struggled for the rights of secular schools with Yiddish as their language of instruction. He was one of the founders of the YIVO research institute which was established in Vilna.

Isaiah Eisenstadt (pseudonyms Yudin, Vitali) (1867-1937), one of the founders of the Jewish socialist revolutionary movement in Russia, born in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire).

Eisenstadt was member of the Narodnaya Volya ("Will of the People") movement during the 1880's. He was arrested and sentenced for revolutionary activities. After one year in prison, he returned to Vilna, and joined the Social Democrats. He was an energetic organizer amongst the Jewish workers of Vilna and Odessa. The Russian authorities exiled him to Siberia from 1896 to 1901. After his return he became one of the founders of the Bund within which he was prominent amongst the "anti-legalists" (as opposed to the "legalists" whose activities were with the law). As a result he was frequently arrested. A member of the central committee of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party, Eisenstadt tried to arrange a compromise between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. After the February 1917 Revolution, Eisenstadt was active in St.Petersburg. He was elected vice-chairman of the central committee of the Bund but joined the Social Democratic Bund after its split with the communists. In 1922 he was again arrested but was given permission to emigrate from the USSR. He went to Berlin and then Paris where he continued with his political activities, this time with the Menshevik émigrés. His wife was Lyuba Eisenstadt-Levinson, a leading socialist activist in her own right.

Leizer Wolf (born Eliezer Mekler) (1910-1943), poet, born in Vilnius (Vilna), Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). He was the founder of the literary circle Young Vilna. In 1939 he escaped to the Soviet Union where he died in a kolchoz in an Asian Soviet Republic. 
His books of poetry include Shvartse Perl (1939) and Lider (published posthumously in 1955).

David Meckler (1891-1976), editor, born in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). In 1907 he emigrated to the United States and studied journalism at University College of Communication in Boston. Although he had received his higher education in English he preferred to communicate in Yiddish, his mother-tongue. His first articles were published in the Yiddisher Advocat (Boston); in 1911-12 Meckler was editor of the Jewish Weekly in Boston, which appeared in both Yiddish and English. Moving to New York City in 1913, Meckler joined the staff of the Varheit where he remained for 5 years. He later wrote for the Morning Journal and served as editor in chief of The Day‐Jewish Journal, which ended publication in 1971 after 57 years as the largest Yiddish‐language newspaper in the United States. Meckler, also known under his pseudonym Ben Shloimi, wrote The Truth About Henry Ford (Yiddish; 1924); Fun Rebens Hoif, (a collection of Hassidic tales in Yiddish; 1932); Machine and Men in Soviet Russia (Yiddish; 1935,) and Miracle Men (Hassidic tales written in English; 1936).

Micah Joseph (Mikhal) Lebensohn (1828-1852), Hebrew poet of the Haskalah.

Son of poet Abraham Dov Lebensohn, born in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). Despite his death at the age of 24, he was an outstanding intellectual and a very influential member of the Haskalah movement in Lithuania. Parallel to a traditional Jewish education he was privately tutored in German, Polish, Russian and French. At the age of 19 he translated into Hebrew most of the second book of Vergil’s Aenid from Schiller's German version. This established his reputation in Vilna. One year later he translated Vittorio Alfieri’s play Saul.

At the age of 17 Lebensohn contracted tuberculosis and was sent to Germany for treatment. He was never cured. He however continued to write until almost the end of his short life. He became acquainted with contemporary literature and attended lectures on philosophy. He was influenced by Shneur Zachs and by Leopold Zunz who encouraged him to write epic poetry, depicting personal emotions. After his death, his father published his works in two parts "Shirei Bat Zion" (1851) and "Kinnor Bat Zion" (1870).

Lebensohn was influenced also by the Romantic movement, which accounts for emphasized the youthful freshness of his lyrical poetry, depicting personal emotions and experiences. This contrasts with the rationalism and moralizing of earlier Haskala literature. Many of Lebensohn’s greatest poetry focuses on tragic and crucial moments in the lives of his hero - as a lyric poet he knows well how to portray the battles being fought out in the hero’s tortured soul. This often reflected his own personal situation.

Abraham Dov Lebensohn ( Adam ha-Kohen), (1794-1878), Hebrew poet of the Haskala, born in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). He received a traditional elementary and yeshiva education. He openly declared his allegiance to the principles of the Haskala. From 1849 to 1853 Lebensohn together with Isaac ben Jacob and Behak produced a commentary on Moses Mendelsohn’s translation of the Bible. This commentary made a substantial contribution to the spreading of the ideas of the Haskala amongst Russian Jewry. After the death of M.A. Guenzburg in 1846, he became the accepted leader of the maskilim in Vilna. Lebensohn became main preacher at the Tohorat HaKodesh synagogue and then in 1847 he was appointed teacher of Hebrew, Aramic and Bible at the government rabbinical school. In 1874 he published a Hebrew grammar.

Lebensohn contributed to several Hebrew periodicals. The first poems he wrote were for weddings or funerals of important members of the Vilna community. Lebensohn’s first published collection of poetry written in Hebrew was "Shirei Sefat Kodesh" (1842) ("Poems in the Holy Tongue"). In 1842 he wrote a drama “Emet veEmunah” ("Truth and Faith"), but for fear of offending orthodox sensibilities it was published only in 1867 – by that time many thought it too tame. He published a second edition two years later. In 1895 a six volume collection of his and those of his son Mikhal was published under the title "Kol Shirei Adam ve Michal".

Although his knowledge of European languages was limited, Lebensohn was influenced by West European literature and culture and by a number of Jewish and non Jewish west European writers including Luzzatto, Herz Wessely and Schiller. Most of his poems dealt with the conflict between the light (Enlightened rationalism, Haskala, optimism) and the dark and harsh reality of life (six of his children died during his lifetime). His songs became very popular. His command of Hebrew was superb and is considered to be the first eastern European Hebrew poet of significance.

Joseph Elijah Triwosch (1855-1940), Hebrew writer, biblical commentator, and educator, born in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire), he grew up in the environment of the Haskalah movement. He settled in Grodo (now Hrodna, in Belarus) as a teacher of Hebrew, Russian and general subjects. He started to write in 1873 when he published his first story in Ha-Levanon. Other stories, some of the first examples of modern Hebrew fiction, were published in Ha-Shahar, Ha-Melitz, Ha-Carmel, and Ha-Shiloah and other Hebrew literary publications. Most describe Jewish life in Russia. His story Ha-Litai in Ha-Shahar, (1880) and especially his book Dor Tahpukhot (1881), which was about the activities of Russian Social Democrats, made a great impression.

After World War I, Triwosch returned from St. Petersburg to Vilna and taught at the Hebrew secondary school of Vilna. In his last years, he also engaged in biblical and philological research. He wrote the major part of the commentary to the individual books of Mikra Meforash (1909), a project of biblical exegesis, which he edited together with N. Lewin, D. Lewin, and D. Nottick. Triwosch translated into Hebrew the works of Theodore Herzl and also Tolstoy's War and Peace and Anna Karenina (1918-22). He published an anthology of medieval Hebrew literature (1925), and wrote a textbook Hystoria Ke'lalit together with M.Y.Nadel..

Uriel Weinreich (1925-1967), Yiddish and general linguist, editor, and educator, born in Vilnius (Vilna), Lithuania (then part of Poland), he was the son of linguist Max Weinreich. He emigrated to the USA in 1940. Weinreich earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University and went on to teach there, specializing in Yiddish studies, sociolinguistics (the study of the connections between language and society and the way it is used in different social situations) and dialectology (the study of dialects). He advocated the study of semantics as a branch of linguistics and edited an influential Yiddish-English dictionary. He is credited with being the first linguist to recognize the phenomenon of "interlanguage", a temporary tool in language or dialect acquisition.

He was appointed professor of Yiddish language, literature, and culture at Columbia University in 1959, and served also as chairman of the university's Department of Linguistics (1957-1965). His monograph Languages in Contact: Findings and Problems (1952), became a standard reference work in its field; the textbook College Yiddish: An Introduction to the Yiddish Language and to Jewish Life and Culture (1949) which was reprinted 10 times. Weinreich's research papers, written and published in Yiddish, English, Hebrew, French, and Russian, ranged from a cultural history of Yiddish rhyme through phonology, grammatical theory, bilingualism, language standardization, dialectology, semantics, and lexicology.

Weinreich edited the U.S. State Department's Problems of Communism (1950-1951); the linguistic journal Word (1953-1960), the first three volumes of The Field of Yiddish: Studies in Yiddish Language, Folklore, and Literature (1954, 1963, 1969), and the YIVO's Yidisher Folklor [YIVO, the Jewish Scientific Institute founded in Vilna but now centred in New York which preserves mainly Yiddish manuscripts]. He was the editor of the Yiddish section in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica's World Language Dictionary (1954). He published Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry, a large-scale project designed to record and study Yiddish dialects by harnessing the methods of advanced linguistic research and computer data processing.

Eliakum Zunser (1836-1913). Yiddish poet, song-writer and badchen [Hassidic wedding entertainer]. Born in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire), in his youth he began to compose songs for weddings which he set to music of an Oriental character. He was at first associated with the Musar movement but was later drawn to the Haskalah. He was forcible conscripted into the Russian army in 1856 but was soon released.

In the 1870s his wife and 9 children all died. After the pogroms which followed the assassination of the Czar Alexander II he became associated with the Zionist movement and was affiliated with Hovevei Zion and Bilu. In 1889, Zunser emigrated to the United States, where he toured the country singing and reciting his songs. In 1905 he settled in New York

His first published book was Shirim Hadashim (Vilna, 1862). Altogether he wrote more than 600 poems, which were published in sixty-five collections, some with music and some with translation into Hebrew. The themes of his poems were simple and had catchy tunes intended to appeal to popular fancy, but many of them were melancholy reflecting the tragedies which occurred during his life. Some were influenced by the desire to return to Palestine and till its soil. Several of his earliest poems describe the plight of the Jewish draftees in Russia.

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The Jewish Community of Vilnius

Vilnius

Also known as Vilna

In Lithuanian Vilnius, in Polish Wilno, in Russian Vilna, in Yiddish Vilne, capital city of Lithuania. From 1323 capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, between the two World Wars, a district town in Poland, then capital of the Lithuanian S.S.R. from 1940 until 1991. Called by East European Jewry, especially in the modern period, the "Jerusalem of Lithuania" (Yerushalayim de-Lita).

Early History

The first information of an organized Jewish community in Vilna dates from 1568, when it was ordered to pay the poll tax. In February 1633 the Jews of Vilna were granted a charter of privileges permitting them to engage in all branches of commerce, distilling, and any crafts not subject to the guild organizations, but restricting their place of residence in the city. During the first half of the 17th century the Vilna community was augmented by arrivals from Prague, Frankfort, and Polish towns, who included wealthy emigrants and scholars. In this period about 3,000 Jewish residents are recorded out of a total population of some 15,000. Although the Vilna community, now an important Jewish entity, claimed the status of a principal community, or "Community Head of the Courts" (Kehillah Rosh Beth Din), within the organizational framework of the Council of Lithuania (Vaad Lita), the status was not conceded until 1652. During the uprising against Russia in 1794 a number of Vilna Jews demonstrated their loyalty to Poland in the fighting and the Kahal made contributions to the participants in the uprising. After the conquest of the city by the Russians, however, the Jewish position in commerce and crafts improved.

A Center of Torah Learning
Vilna had already become a preeminent center for rabbinical studies by the beginning of the 17th century. Among the scholars born in Vilna were Joshua Hoeschel Ben Joseph and Shabbetai Ha-Kohen, who served as dayyan of the community. The Rabbi of Vilna in the middle of the 17th century was Moses B. Isaac Judah Lima. Among the scholars of Vilna in the second half of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th were R. Moses, called Kremer, his son-in-law Joseph, author of Rosh Yosef, Halakhic and Aggadic novellas; R. Baruch Kahana, known as Baruch Charif; the grammarian Azriel and his two sons Nisan and Elijah, and Zvi Hirsch Kaidanover. From the second half of the 18th century the personality and activities of Eliyahu ben Solomon Zalman, the Gaon of Vilna, who attracted numerous disciples, had a lasting impact on Vilna Jewry. The circle thus formed became the most stimulating religious and spiritual center there and had a profound influence on Judaism, especially in the domains of the Halakhah and Kabbalah.

Opposition to Chassidism
At the end of the 18th century, under the influence of the Gaon, Vilna became the center of the way of life and system of religious study followed by the Mitnaggedim and the focus of their struggle against Hasidism. In 1772 the Kahal disbanded the congregation formed in Vilna by the Hasidim and issued a ban or excommunication against them.

Bitter opposition to Hasidism continued throughout the lifetime of the Gaon. Nevertheless, groups of Hasidim still assembled clandestinely in Vilna and formed their own minyanim, and after 1790 the movement even found support among members of the Kahal. In 1798 the Vilna Kahal was prohibited from imposing fines or corporal punishment for religious offenses. When the Hasidic leader Shneor Zalman of Lyady was denounced to the authorities and imprisoned, 22 Hasidim from Vilna and its environs were also incarcerated, although afterward released. The Kahal elders and dayyanim were dismissed from office in 1799, and the Kahal accounts were examined. A new Kahal was then chosen from among the Hasidim, which controlled the Vilna community for over a year. Subsequently the two parties became reconciled and a new Kahal was elected with representatives of both parties. The Hasidim were permitted to form their own congregations.

The 19th Century
Vilna's preeminence as the seat of Jewish learning continued in the 19th century. As an important center of Haskalah, it attracted many Hebrew writers. When the government commenced its policy of Russification of the Jews, it made Vilna a center of its activities. Max Lilienthal was sent there in 1842 to encourage the establishment of modern schools and in 1847 a government sponsored Rabbinical seminary was established.

The restriction limiting Jewish residence to certain streets in Vilna was abrogated under Alexander I in 1861. It was in this period that the first Jewish socialists in Russia began to be active in the official Rabbinical seminary, among them Aaron Samuel Liebermann and his associates. Anti-Jewish riots took place in 1881 when a band of military conscripts attacked Jewish shops. The Jewish butchers, who organized themselves to oppose the attackers, turned them over to the police. The 1897 census shows 63,831 Jewish inhabitants, 41.9% of the total population. The congested conditions and increasing unemployment led to large-scale emigration. Large numbers left for the United States and South Africa, and a few went to Palestine.

The First Half of the 20th Century
Vilna became a transit center and asylum for Jewish refugees from the vicinity during World War 1. Under German occupation lack of food and discriminatory levies on the Jewish population made conditions increasingly difficult.
The situation was not improved after the war when the struggle between the Poles and Lithuanians for the possession of Vilna (1919-20) entailed frequent changes of government. In April 1919, 80 Jews were massacred by Polish troops.

The inter-war period from 1922 to 1939 was a time of fruitful and manifold social and cultural activities for Vilna Jewry. This period saw the establishment of a network of elementary and secondary schools in which Hebrew was either the language of instruction or the principal language, and of Hebrew and Yiddish teachers' seminaries and trade schools. Vilna was a world center for Yiddish culture. The YIVO Research Institute for Yiddish language and culture was founded in Vilna in 1924.

The Holocaust Period
With the outbreak of World War 2, Soviet Russia invaded Vilna and in October 1939 ceded it to Lithuania. Jewish refugees from divided Poland - The German-occupied part and the Soviet-occupied one - found refuge in Vilna. In June 1940, Lithuania was annexed to the USSR the Soviet authorities closed down Hebrew cultural institutions and Zionist organizations. All Yiddish press was replaced by the Communist party's organ. Many Jews, active Zionists, Bundists, and "Bourgeois", were exiled in 1941 to the Soviet interior and many were confined in camps there.

On June 24, 1941, the Germans entered Vilna and were welcomed by the Lithuanian population with flowers and cheers. Persecution of Vilna's Jewish population (approximately 80,000) began immediately. Prior to the establishment of the ghetto, about 35,000 Jews were murdered in Ponary. In January 1942 the various political organizations in the ghetto created a unified fighting organization, F.P.O. (Fareynigte Partizaner Organizatsye), commanded by Yitzchak Wittenberg, Joseph Glazman, and Abba Kovner. In the beginning, the F.P.O. decided to fight in the ghetto rather than escape to join the partisans in the forests. In addition to smuggling in ammunition, the F.P.O. carried out acts of sabotage, issued an underground bulletin, and forged documents. On July 5, 1943, Wittenberg, the commander of the F.P.O., was arrested. While he was being led out of the ghetto, the F.P.O. attacked the guard and freed him. Realizing that a price would have to be paid for this act of defiance, the underground ordered mobilization of all its units. The Germans issued an ultimatum for Wittenberg to surrender by morning or the ghetto would be wiped out. After hours of difficult deliberation, Wittenberg surrendered himself to the Germans and was murdered by the Gestapo. The F.P.O. then decided to evacuate to the forests.

On September 1st, 1943, the Ghetto was sealed off. The F.P.O. was mobilized at once, and in the morning the German soldiers entered. Fighting erupted in several areas of the ghetto. Jacob Gens, Chief of the Jewish Police successfully petitioned the Germans to leave. Gens was the ghetto's most controversial figure. Some condemned him as an outright German collaborator, while others regarded him as a man who fulfilled German orders in an effort to save as many Jews as possible. Accused by the Gestapo of aiding the underground, he was shot on September 15, 1943. During the first four days of September 1943, while 8,000 more Jews were deported to labor camps in Estonia, 200 fighters left the ghetto to join the partisans. On September 15, 1943, the ghetto was again surrounded, but the Germans withdrew when they learned that the remaining F.P.O. fighters were again mobilized for battle. On September 23 the Jews were ordered to prepare for the final deportation, which would liquidate the ghetto.

It is estimated that approximately 100,000 Jews from Vilna and the vicinity perished in the Vilna ghetto.

After World War 2
After the Soviet army liberated Lithuania (July 12, 1944) about 6,000 survivors from the forests and other places assembled in the city. In the 1959 census 16,354 Jews (6.96% of the total population) were registered in Vilna, 326 of whom declared Yiddish to be their mother tongue. In 1970 the number of Jews was estimated much higher. The only synagogue left generally served a small number of elderly Jews, except on holidays, particularly on Simchat Torah, when many hundreds congregated, including younger people. After the Six-Day War in the Middle East (1967) identification with Israel became more pronounced, especially among the young, in spite of the official anti-Israel campaign, and Jews from Vilna were among those who protested against the refusal to grant them exit permits to Israel.

Revival of Jewish Life in Vilna
In August 23, 1988, when the downfall of the Soviet regime in Lithuania could already be sensed, a small group of Jews, headed by Rina Zilberman, Gregori (Grisha) Alpernas, Hirsch Belitzky, and an American citizen, founded an organization named "Tkumah". Their aim was to revive Jewish culture amongst Lithuanian Jewry and encourage them to make Aliyah.

On September 26, 1988 "Tkumah" organized a march to Ponary, the place where about 80,000 Jews from Vilna and its surroundings were murdered by the Nazis in the years 1941-44. About 2000 people participated in the march. They placed Magen David signs near each pit that had an inscription stating merely that the victims were "Soviet citizens".
"Etslenu" (אצלנו), the organ of "Tkumah", was issued clandestinely in Russian, among members, friends and other trustable individuals. They also organized lectures in Russian.

"Tkumah" also established a Hebrew studies school with four classes. The school was authorized by the KGB.

During the Soviet period, before the restoration of Lithuanian independence in 1990, there was not an organized Jewish community. Only in 1989 the first steps were undertaken towards the establishment of a new Jewish community in Lithuania by the founding of the Association of the Culture of Lithuanian Jews. As of November 1991 it became the new Jewish Community of the Jews in Lithuania. The community is governed by the Community’s Council, which is elected by the Conference along with the Chairperson of the Community. The Jewish population of Lithuania is estimated at some 5,000 (6,000 in 1997), most of them living in Vilna.

Cultural Activities
The community is active in a number of fields, among them a special attention is given to maintaining the Jewish national identity and the restoration of the religious life and of the Jewish cultural heritage. The community organizes meetings, lectures, and exhibitions dedicated to an array of subjects including Israel related topics as well as Jewish holidays. Remembering the Holocaust victims remains a top priority of the Jewish community: there are over 200 places of mass extermination on the Lithuanian territory that need to be cared for. Each year solemn ceremonies are held on September 23, the Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust in Lithuania, at the 9th Fort in Kaunas and in Ponary, the sites of the most terrible mass murders of Jews.

The Jewish Gaon State Museum, founded in 1989, has also a permanent exhibition on the Holocaust and among various temporary exhibitions “The Jews of Lithuania in the Fight against Nazism” was opened in 2000 to mark the 55th anniversary of the victory against the Nazis. The list of the Vilna ghetto prisoners was published in a new book.
Of the cultural institutions and organizations a special mention should be made of the Jewish Cultural Club that attracts Jewish and non-Jewish audiences, of Ilan, a children and youth club, and of Abi men zet zich, a senior citizens club.

The Jewish community publishes the Jerusalem of Lithuania - a four-language periodical in Yiddish, Lithuanian, English and Russian reporting the events in the life of the community with a special emphasis on the cultural aspects.

Education
Today, again there are Jewish schools in Vilna: The Shalom Aleichem State School has some 200 students. Its curriculum includes in addition to the general subjects, the study of the Hebrew language, the Bible, and the history of the Jewish people. The Chabad community in Vilna runs a private religious school.

Welfare Program
The Jewish community runs an extensive welfare program in support of its needy members. These are mainly pensioners who either remained alone after their relatives had emigrated to other countries or had been severely affected by the economic crisis that followed the collapse of the U.S.R.R. The aid program includes distribution of food, clothes, financial support, and medical care as well as other free of charge services, among them housecleaning, laundry, etc. The welfare program has been possible thanks to the generous assistance of various Jewish organizations, especially the American Joint Distribution Committee, and private donors.

Center of Jewish Political Activity
Vilna became an active meeting ground for Jewish socialists in the 1890s. A convention of Jewish social democrats was held in 1895, while in 1897 the Bund Labor Party held its founding convention and Vilna became the center of its activities. At the beginning of the 20th century Vilna became the center of the Zionist movement in Russia, and saw the rise of a flourishing Hebrew and Yiddish literature. One of the first societies of the Hibbat Zion movement was founded there; Chovevei Zion conventions were held in Vilna. Theodor Herzl, who visited Vilna in 1903, was given an enthusiastic popular reception. The central bureau of the Zionist organization in Russia functioned in Vilna between 1905 and 1911 and for some time the Po’alei Zion Party made Vilna its headquarters. The well-known Zionist leader Shmaryahu Levin was elected as deputy for Vilna to the Duma (Russian Parliament). Orthodox circles were organized under the leadership of R. Chayyim Ozer Grodzenski, and afterward were amalgamated with the Agudat Israel.

Written by researchers of ANU Museum of the Jewish People
Moses ben Mordechai Meisel

Moses ben Mordechai Meisel (c.1760-1838), torah scholar, author, maskil. Born in Vilna, Lithuania.

In his youth Meisel was one of the pupils closest to the Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, the.Vilna Gaon. Later, he came under the influence of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady, the founder of Habad and he joined the Hassidic movement. In consequence, fearing persecution by the conservative Vilna religious establishment, Meisel fled to Germany. He had no desire to participate in the bitter controversies which divided Polish Jewry at that time. In Germany he became familiar with German literature and studied the writings of Moses Mendelssohn and other members of the Haskalah movement. During the Napoleonic Wars, Meisel conferred with representatives of the French government on several occasions. Shneur Zalman convinced him to stop these talks; this aroused the suspicions of Napoleon's aides who were convinced that he was collaborating with the Russians and Meisel was compelled to flee. He went to Eretz Israel and in 1813 lived in Hebron. He returned to Lithuania only after the French defeat. During the 1820s he went once more to Hebron, and in his last years he was closely associated with Sir Moses Montefiore.

Moses Meisel's poem Shirat Mosheh (Shklov, 1788) is based on the 613 laws which govern Jewish life, each line of the poem begins with a letter from the Ten Commandments.
Meisel died in Hebron in c.1838.

Zemach Shabad (Szabad)

Zemach Shabad (Szabad) (1864-1935), physician, communal leader, and publicist, one of the heads of the Vilna community. Born in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). In 1881, Shabad moved with his family to Moscow, where he completed his studies in medicine at Moscow University (1884-1889). In 1894 he settled in Vilna, devoting himself to work in a hospital of which he eventually became a director.

Active in many communal organizations, Shabad for many years served as chairman of YEKOPO [Lithuanian Jewish Relief Committee]. He was active in promoting ORT, the world-wide organization whuich supported vocational training for Jewish youth, in Vilna and was its chairman until 1925. His also founded the Vilna branch of OZE [The society for the Protection of the Health of Jews], which was affiliated to the national organization of TOZ. The committee organized health clinics, the spreading of health care information and awareness of preventative medicine amongst the Jews of northern Europe. In this connection he wrote numerous articles about medical care and research in Folksgesund, the magazine of TOZ.

Shabad was a delegate at a conference of the Haskalah movement at St. Petersburg. A convinced socialist he participated in the 1905 Russian Revolution and as a result was exiled for three years. During World War I, Shabad worked to protect Jews in the battle areas from epidemics and hunger. In 1919-1920 he was president of the Vilna Jewish community council, and between 1919 and 1927 was a member of the Vilna municipal council. He established evening schools for women.

Politically he was affiliated with the Folkist Party (Folkspartei) in Poland which was founded after the 1905 pogroms in the Russian Empire – the party sought to achieve cultural and national autonomy for Jews in the Diaspora. In economic matters the party was liberal, secular and democratic. He was personally close to the party leadership. After the 1926 split in the party Shabad, as head of the dissidents whose center was in Vilna, made contact with the minority bloc, and in 1928 was elected a member of the Polish Senate. There he fought manifestations of anti-Semitism and discrimination by the government. At the end of his life he became close to the neo-Territorialist movement. Supporting Jewish cultural and national autonomy, and as one of the active members of the Central Yiddish School Organization (CYSHO), he struggled for the rights of secular schools with Yiddish as their language of instruction. He was one of the founders of the YIVO research institute which was established in Vilna.

Isaiah Eisenstadt

Isaiah Eisenstadt (pseudonyms Yudin, Vitali) (1867-1937), one of the founders of the Jewish socialist revolutionary movement in Russia, born in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire).

Eisenstadt was member of the Narodnaya Volya ("Will of the People") movement during the 1880's. He was arrested and sentenced for revolutionary activities. After one year in prison, he returned to Vilna, and joined the Social Democrats. He was an energetic organizer amongst the Jewish workers of Vilna and Odessa. The Russian authorities exiled him to Siberia from 1896 to 1901. After his return he became one of the founders of the Bund within which he was prominent amongst the "anti-legalists" (as opposed to the "legalists" whose activities were with the law). As a result he was frequently arrested. A member of the central committee of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party, Eisenstadt tried to arrange a compromise between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. After the February 1917 Revolution, Eisenstadt was active in St.Petersburg. He was elected vice-chairman of the central committee of the Bund but joined the Social Democratic Bund after its split with the communists. In 1922 he was again arrested but was given permission to emigrate from the USSR. He went to Berlin and then Paris where he continued with his political activities, this time with the Menshevik émigrés. His wife was Lyuba Eisenstadt-Levinson, a leading socialist activist in her own right.

Leizer Wolf

Leizer Wolf (born Eliezer Mekler) (1910-1943), poet, born in Vilnius (Vilna), Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). He was the founder of the literary circle Young Vilna. In 1939 he escaped to the Soviet Union where he died in a kolchoz in an Asian Soviet Republic. 
His books of poetry include Shvartse Perl (1939) and Lider (published posthumously in 1955).

David Meckler

David Meckler (1891-1976), editor, born in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). In 1907 he emigrated to the United States and studied journalism at University College of Communication in Boston. Although he had received his higher education in English he preferred to communicate in Yiddish, his mother-tongue. His first articles were published in the Yiddisher Advocat (Boston); in 1911-12 Meckler was editor of the Jewish Weekly in Boston, which appeared in both Yiddish and English. Moving to New York City in 1913, Meckler joined the staff of the Varheit where he remained for 5 years. He later wrote for the Morning Journal and served as editor in chief of The Day‐Jewish Journal, which ended publication in 1971 after 57 years as the largest Yiddish‐language newspaper in the United States. Meckler, also known under his pseudonym Ben Shloimi, wrote The Truth About Henry Ford (Yiddish; 1924); Fun Rebens Hoif, (a collection of Hassidic tales in Yiddish; 1932); Machine and Men in Soviet Russia (Yiddish; 1935,) and Miracle Men (Hassidic tales written in English; 1936).

Micah Joseph (Mikhal) Lebensohn

Micah Joseph (Mikhal) Lebensohn (1828-1852), Hebrew poet of the Haskalah.

Son of poet Abraham Dov Lebensohn, born in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). Despite his death at the age of 24, he was an outstanding intellectual and a very influential member of the Haskalah movement in Lithuania. Parallel to a traditional Jewish education he was privately tutored in German, Polish, Russian and French. At the age of 19 he translated into Hebrew most of the second book of Vergil’s Aenid from Schiller's German version. This established his reputation in Vilna. One year later he translated Vittorio Alfieri’s play Saul.

At the age of 17 Lebensohn contracted tuberculosis and was sent to Germany for treatment. He was never cured. He however continued to write until almost the end of his short life. He became acquainted with contemporary literature and attended lectures on philosophy. He was influenced by Shneur Zachs and by Leopold Zunz who encouraged him to write epic poetry, depicting personal emotions. After his death, his father published his works in two parts "Shirei Bat Zion" (1851) and "Kinnor Bat Zion" (1870).

Lebensohn was influenced also by the Romantic movement, which accounts for emphasized the youthful freshness of his lyrical poetry, depicting personal emotions and experiences. This contrasts with the rationalism and moralizing of earlier Haskala literature. Many of Lebensohn’s greatest poetry focuses on tragic and crucial moments in the lives of his hero - as a lyric poet he knows well how to portray the battles being fought out in the hero’s tortured soul. This often reflected his own personal situation.

Abraham Dov (Adam) Lebensohn

Abraham Dov Lebensohn ( Adam ha-Kohen), (1794-1878), Hebrew poet of the Haskala, born in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). He received a traditional elementary and yeshiva education. He openly declared his allegiance to the principles of the Haskala. From 1849 to 1853 Lebensohn together with Isaac ben Jacob and Behak produced a commentary on Moses Mendelsohn’s translation of the Bible. This commentary made a substantial contribution to the spreading of the ideas of the Haskala amongst Russian Jewry. After the death of M.A. Guenzburg in 1846, he became the accepted leader of the maskilim in Vilna. Lebensohn became main preacher at the Tohorat HaKodesh synagogue and then in 1847 he was appointed teacher of Hebrew, Aramic and Bible at the government rabbinical school. In 1874 he published a Hebrew grammar.

Lebensohn contributed to several Hebrew periodicals. The first poems he wrote were for weddings or funerals of important members of the Vilna community. Lebensohn’s first published collection of poetry written in Hebrew was "Shirei Sefat Kodesh" (1842) ("Poems in the Holy Tongue"). In 1842 he wrote a drama “Emet veEmunah” ("Truth and Faith"), but for fear of offending orthodox sensibilities it was published only in 1867 – by that time many thought it too tame. He published a second edition two years later. In 1895 a six volume collection of his and those of his son Mikhal was published under the title "Kol Shirei Adam ve Michal".

Although his knowledge of European languages was limited, Lebensohn was influenced by West European literature and culture and by a number of Jewish and non Jewish west European writers including Luzzatto, Herz Wessely and Schiller. Most of his poems dealt with the conflict between the light (Enlightened rationalism, Haskala, optimism) and the dark and harsh reality of life (six of his children died during his lifetime). His songs became very popular. His command of Hebrew was superb and is considered to be the first eastern European Hebrew poet of significance.

Joseph Elijah Triwosch

Joseph Elijah Triwosch (1855-1940), Hebrew writer, biblical commentator, and educator, born in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire), he grew up in the environment of the Haskalah movement. He settled in Grodo (now Hrodna, in Belarus) as a teacher of Hebrew, Russian and general subjects. He started to write in 1873 when he published his first story in Ha-Levanon. Other stories, some of the first examples of modern Hebrew fiction, were published in Ha-Shahar, Ha-Melitz, Ha-Carmel, and Ha-Shiloah and other Hebrew literary publications. Most describe Jewish life in Russia. His story Ha-Litai in Ha-Shahar, (1880) and especially his book Dor Tahpukhot (1881), which was about the activities of Russian Social Democrats, made a great impression.

After World War I, Triwosch returned from St. Petersburg to Vilna and taught at the Hebrew secondary school of Vilna. In his last years, he also engaged in biblical and philological research. He wrote the major part of the commentary to the individual books of Mikra Meforash (1909), a project of biblical exegesis, which he edited together with N. Lewin, D. Lewin, and D. Nottick. Triwosch translated into Hebrew the works of Theodore Herzl and also Tolstoy's War and Peace and Anna Karenina (1918-22). He published an anthology of medieval Hebrew literature (1925), and wrote a textbook Hystoria Ke'lalit together with M.Y.Nadel..

Uriel Weinreich

Uriel Weinreich (1925-1967), Yiddish and general linguist, editor, and educator, born in Vilnius (Vilna), Lithuania (then part of Poland), he was the son of linguist Max Weinreich. He emigrated to the USA in 1940. Weinreich earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University and went on to teach there, specializing in Yiddish studies, sociolinguistics (the study of the connections between language and society and the way it is used in different social situations) and dialectology (the study of dialects). He advocated the study of semantics as a branch of linguistics and edited an influential Yiddish-English dictionary. He is credited with being the first linguist to recognize the phenomenon of "interlanguage", a temporary tool in language or dialect acquisition.

He was appointed professor of Yiddish language, literature, and culture at Columbia University in 1959, and served also as chairman of the university's Department of Linguistics (1957-1965). His monograph Languages in Contact: Findings and Problems (1952), became a standard reference work in its field; the textbook College Yiddish: An Introduction to the Yiddish Language and to Jewish Life and Culture (1949) which was reprinted 10 times. Weinreich's research papers, written and published in Yiddish, English, Hebrew, French, and Russian, ranged from a cultural history of Yiddish rhyme through phonology, grammatical theory, bilingualism, language standardization, dialectology, semantics, and lexicology.

Weinreich edited the U.S. State Department's Problems of Communism (1950-1951); the linguistic journal Word (1953-1960), the first three volumes of The Field of Yiddish: Studies in Yiddish Language, Folklore, and Literature (1954, 1963, 1969), and the YIVO's Yidisher Folklor [YIVO, the Jewish Scientific Institute founded in Vilna but now centred in New York which preserves mainly Yiddish manuscripts]. He was the editor of the Yiddish section in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica's World Language Dictionary (1954). He published Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry, a large-scale project designed to record and study Yiddish dialects by harnessing the methods of advanced linguistic research and computer data processing.

Eliakum Zunser

Eliakum Zunser (1836-1913). Yiddish poet, song-writer and badchen [Hassidic wedding entertainer]. Born in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire), in his youth he began to compose songs for weddings which he set to music of an Oriental character. He was at first associated with the Musar movement but was later drawn to the Haskalah. He was forcible conscripted into the Russian army in 1856 but was soon released.

In the 1870s his wife and 9 children all died. After the pogroms which followed the assassination of the Czar Alexander II he became associated with the Zionist movement and was affiliated with Hovevei Zion and Bilu. In 1889, Zunser emigrated to the United States, where he toured the country singing and reciting his songs. In 1905 he settled in New York

His first published book was Shirim Hadashim (Vilna, 1862). Altogether he wrote more than 600 poems, which were published in sixty-five collections, some with music and some with translation into Hebrew. The themes of his poems were simple and had catchy tunes intended to appeal to popular fancy, but many of them were melancholy reflecting the tragedies which occurred during his life. Some were influenced by the desire to return to Palestine and till its soil. Several of his earliest poems describe the plight of the Jewish draftees in Russia.