Jewish Cultural Life in Interwar Vilnius

Mordechai Zalkin

In the 19th century, Vilnius experienced a renaissance and became an impor- tant political, cultural and economic centre. The cultural life of the Jewish community had already evolved by then, and it later acquired new and more varied forms. Thanks to the large number of prominent local religious schol- ars and their extremely distinguished achievements, Vilnius was known as the capital of Torah studies, or “the Jerusalem of Lithuania” among world Jewish communities. Even under Polish rule during the interwar period, the Jews re- ferred to Vilnius by this emotional and honourable name. Local Jews spared no efforts in nurturing the unique Litvak culture, the collective identity of their community, and the cultural importance of the city, which far exceeded its size. Despite the antisemitic policy of the Polish authorities, and the introduc- tion of various restrictions on Jews, the foundations of modern culture that were laid before the war continued to yield fruit.

1 A Diverse Cultural Life

The diversity of the cultural life can best be seen in the Jewish education of the period, when after the war the activities of various Jewish educational in- stitutions (kindergartens, schools, gymnasia) resumed.1 They were linked to various ideological and cultural movements: (a) Tarbut, the Zionist network of Hebrew kindergartens, primary schools, gymnasia and teachers’ seminaries; Tahkemoni, a Zionist national-religious network of primary schools, which also included the Tushiyah; the Shul-Kult (Yiddish for School and Culture, ab- breviated) gymnasium, a Yiddish school that belonged to the Zionist socialist party Poaley Tsion; (b) at the initiative of the Zentraler Bildungs Komitet (Yid- dish for Central Education Committee), a system of Yiddish primary schools, kindergartens and gymnasia with an emphasis on sciences and the humanities was set up; Yavne, a network of Orthodox primary schools, heders and yeshi- vahs; (c) like elsewhere in Poland, there were several state-run Jewish schools (szabasówka) and private kindergartens, gymnasia and teacher’s seminaries,

1 Leizer Ran, Yerushalayim de-lite: iliustrit un dokumentirt, vol. 2 (New York: Vilner Albom Komitet, 1986), 278–289.

Jews in the Republic of Lithuania 369 where the language of tuition was Polish; (d) vocational schools, including the ort Technical Lyceum. Jewish pupils also went to non-Jewish schools, and hundreds of young Jews studied in various faculties of Stephen Bathory University.2 This unique educational system not only reflected the diversity of Jewish cultural life, but also made a considerable contribution to local cultural life.3 The linguistic abilities of the pupils at these schools, and the variety of subjects they studied in the exact sciences and humanities, made them future creators and consumers of culture. And indeed, thanks to the success of the modern Jewish education system in creating a new identity for their pupils, the versa- tile cultural activities of the Jewish community in Vilnius were extensive. The “Jerusalem of Lithuania” was just as well known among readers in Hebrew and in Yiddish for its concentration of writers and poets. In 1931, for example, five Jewish dailies, three weeklies, several bi-weeklies, three quarterlies and three magazines were published, of which mention should be made of Di tsayt (Yid- dish for Time), Der veker (The Awakener), Dos yidishe folk (The Jewish People), Der tog (The Day), Yidishe tsaytung (The Jewish Newspaper) and Unzer fraynd (Our Friend). Along with these, the Jewish reader had access to periodical publications in other languages, such as Polish, Russian, German and English. Also in 1931, local Jewish printing presses published and distributed 224 books and pamphlets in Hebrew and Yiddish.4 Despite the large number of pupils in Hebrew schools and gymnasia, Lithuania’s most prominent writers and poets who wrote in Hebrew were in Kaunas,5 the temporary capital. Vilnius was known as the capital of Yiddish writers. The talented young Yiddish writers and poets Zalmen Reyzen (1888–1941), Avrom Sutzkever (1913–2010), Moyshe Shalit (1885–1941), Moyshe Kulbak (1896–1937) and Shmerke Katsherginski (1908–1954) transformed the city into a popular site of “pilgrimage” for numer- ous lovers of Yiddish literature and poetry.6 In 1927, talented young Yiddish

2 Arcadius Kahan, Essays in Jewish Social and Economic History (Chicago and London: The Uni- versity of Chicago Press, 1986), 166. 3 See: Yefim Yeshurin, ed., Vilne: a zamlbukh gevidmet der shtot vilne (New York: Futuro Press 1935). 4 Pinkas ha-kehilot. Polin / pinkas Hakehilot. Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities. Poland, Vol. 8, S. Spector (ed.), Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2005, 58. 5 Hamutal Bar-Yosef, “Lea goldberg ve-hashir ha-litai ha-amami”, in Mimerkazim le-merkaz: sefer nurit guvrin, ed. Avner Holzman (Tel Aviv: Universitat Tel Aviv, 2005), 437–459. 6 Nathan Cohen, “Sifrut Yiddish ha-tzeira be-Polin sebein shetei ha-milkhamot, pirsumeha u-maavakeha le-hakara”, in Kiyum va-shever, eds. Yisrael Bartal, and Yisrael Gutman, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2001), 233–252.