The Nature of Lithuanian Jewry: the legacy of the Gaon of Vilna

ENThe nature of Lithuanian Jewry, the distinctiveness of Lithuanian Jewry, its truly extraordinary intellectual and educational achievements, its immense spiritual and cultural contributions... all these seemingly defy easy analysis. Although a small and impoverished community, Lithuanian Jewry far eclipsed its co-religionists of larger and more prosperous lands in producing premiere rabbinic scholars, a remarkably learned laity, prodigious literary publications, and a broad range of cultural achievements. "Though Peretz may have written in Warsaw, he was read in Vilna", went the popular saying. Indeed, while Warsaw may have had six times the Jewish population of Vilna, more Jewish school children in Vilna were enrolled in Yiddish schools than was the case in all of Warsaw. Little Vilna was the indisputable center of Jewish culture and learning in Eastern Europe [p. 206].