Lithuanian Jerusalem

Jewish culture flourished in Lithuania since the medieval ages, when Lithuania was known as "Northern Jerusalem". Its dukes, starting with Vytautas Magnus in AD 1388, encouraged Jewish migration to Lithuania. In some Lithuanian towns Jews began to outnumber the Christian population and yeshivas of Lithuania became important centres of Talmudic studies. There was even a unique Jewish civil autonomy during the interwar period from 1918 to 1925. Nazi occupation destroyed Northern Jerusalem. In no other occupied European country was almost the entire community _ 90 percent of population - massacred. The selection of books below is dedicated mainly to the 1941-1944 tragedy. A brief overview of the 600 years of Jewish history in Lithuania is published in the book "The Peoples of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania", described above.

Synagogues in Lithuania. A Catalogue (A-M)

Aliza Cohen-Mushlin, Sergey Kravtsov, Vladimir Levin, Giedrė Mickūnaitė, Jurgita Šiaučiūnaitė-Verbickienė

Synagogues constitute a substantial part of Lithuania’s sacred built heritage. Until World War II there were about one thousand Jewish prayer houses in cities and towns of Lithuania, while today only about one hundred buildings are extant, many of them abandoned and in varied degree of preservation.
The need for cataloguing the surviving synagogues in their present state, researching and reviewing their history and architecture, arose from the desire to preserve these buildings at least in written and visual form if not as structures of wood and brick.
The publication offers a catalogue of the extant synagogue buildings identified by a team of Israeli and Lithuanian scholars. It also includes short overviews of the history of the Jewish communities and information about vanished synagogues.

Publisher Vilnius Academy of Arts Press, 2010, 333 pages, paperback, ISBN: 9789955854609

In English

Price € 29.50 (Delivery price included)

Lithuanian Jewish Culture. 2nd edition

Dovid Katz

Baltos lankos publishing house reprinted Dovid Katz's monumental Lithuanian Jewish Culture.
It is the most comprehensive work ever to appear in English on the cultural, linguistic and spiritual worlds of the Litvaks - the Jews hailing from the lands of the medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuanian and its successor modern states – Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, and parts of northern Ukraine and northeaster Poland.
This 400 page volume contains 325 rare photographic images collected by the author, many appearing in print for the first time. There are also 26 maps and charts, all of which are newly produced specially for this volume by Dr. Giedrė Beconytė of Vilnius University's Centre for Cartography.

Publisher Baltos lankos, 2009, 400 pages, hard cover, 25x29 cm, ISBN: 9789639776517

In English

Price € 110.00 (Delivery price included)

Vilnius: Jewish Echoes

Album includes photographs, postcards, paintings made from 19th century to the Second World War.
Hundreds of synagogues and study houses of Vilnius were filled with young students and elderly Jews studying Torah and Talmud. In its narrow urban quarters, Jewish life pulsated with yeshivas, schools, libraries, publishing houses, shops and street peddlers...

Publisher Darlis, 2009, 95 pages, hard cover, ISBN: 9789986821151

In English

Price € 23.50 (Delivery price included)

Sounds of silence: traces of Jewish life in Lithuania: album

Raimondas Paknys (photos), Dovid Katz (preface author and consultant), Isaac Zibuts (project)

A memorial album dedicated to the annihilated Jewish communities of Lithuania. Photographs that capture the images of cemeteries, prayer houses, and other buildings and sites connected to Jewish life, or more precisely – images of what remains many years after the golden age of Jewish Lithuania.

Publisher R. Paknio leidykla, 2009, 201 pages, hard cover, ISBN: 9789955736271

In English

Price € 54.50 (Delivery price included)

Windows to a Lost Jewish Past. Vilna book stamps

Dovid Katz

In this unique study, forgotten book stamps rise up anew as witnesses to the bygone civilization of the Jewish Vilna of old, saying a lot about people, culture and society. From religious to radical, these book stamps tell the story of a rainbow of diversity within the Jewish life of a city once known as the Jerusalem of Lithuania.

Publisher Versus aueus, 2008, 110 pages, hard cover, ISBN: 9789955341200

In English

Price € 12.99 (Delivery price included)

A Disappearing Heritage: The Synagogue Architecture of Lithuania

Marija Rupeikienė

A Disappearing Heritage: The Synagogue Architecture of Lithuania, by Dr Marija Rupeikienė, is the first complex study of synagogues to be made in Lithuania, and adds to the study of the history of Lithuanian architecture with original material about synagogues which have so far been little researched.

Publisher E. Karpavičius Publishers, 2008, 189 pages, hard cover, ISBN: 9789955878025

In English

Price € 21.50 (Delivery price included)

Vilniaus Geto afišos. Albumas-katalogas/Vilna Ghetto Posters. Album-Catalogue

Compiled by Jevgenija Biber, Rocha Kostanian, Judita Rozina

This album-catalogue of Vilna Ghetto posters, compiled by researchers at the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, provides insights into Jewish cultural life in Vilna Ghetto. The album-catalogue includes a detailed cumulative list of Vilna Ghetto posters stored in the Lithuanian State Central Archives and the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum. The chapter “People from the Posters” outlines the activities and fates of the people who were involved in the Ghetto’s cultural life.

Publisher Vilna Gaon Jewish Museum, 2006, 371 pages, hard cover, ISBN: 9955230584

In Lithuanian and English

Price € 51.50 (Delivery price included)

The Persecution and Mass Murder of Lithuanian Jews during Summer and Fall of 1941

Christoph Dieckmann, Saulius Sužiedėlis

Authors of this study have attempted to answer questions which immediately confront us when faced with the murder of civilians on such a scale. Who is responsible? How was it possible in twentieth-century Europe even under conditions of occupation and social disintegration? What was the secret mechanism behind the organisation of the mass murder? How many victims were there?

Publisher Margi raštai, 2006, 280 pages, hard cover, ISBN: 9986093066 (wrong)

In Lithuanian and English

Price € 14.50 (Delivery price included)

Jewish Cultural Heritage in Lithuania

Edited by Alfredas Jomantas

Jewish heritage is an integral part of European history and culture. Lithuanian Jews’ community is one of the oldest in Europe.
Famous Jewish people that took part in cultural life of Lithuania, buildings, synagogues, other sacral heritage are described in this book.

Publisher Versus Aureus, 2006, 294 pages, paperback, ISBN: 9955699477

In English

Price € 11.50 (Delivery price included)