"Hier und jetzt": über Bedingungen und Wirkungsspielräume der zionistischen Bewegung in Litauen, 1906-1940

ENThis article gives a survey of the continuously altering frameworks and scope for impact of the Zionist movement in Lithuania during the first three decades of the 2o,h century, which represented a period of unparalleled opportunities for the development of Jewish politics in the emerging republic. Thus, it focuses primarily on the political development of the Zionist organization, its attempt to direct the internal transformation of the Jewish masses, and the changes in its ideological and practical program in the face of new historical and political circumstances. The starting date of the period encompassed relates to the fact that, in 1906, the central Zionist office for all of Russia was shifted to Vilna (Vilnius). Although this was due to external factors, Vilna and the Zionist activists working there ensured the sustained development of the Zionist movement on Lithuanian territory and put into practice an important principle of Zionist ideology, “work in the present” (Kegnvart arbet). The study ends with the year of the first Soviet occupation of the Lithuanian Republic, when Zionist organizations were closed and many of their leaders were deported. A look at this period of more than three decades offers a retrospective view of the Zionist movement in Lithuania, displaying the opportunities for political action which were influenced by the geopolitical and legal changes in the region. Emphasis is given to a thorough analysis of Zionist ambitions and to the political reality at the dawn of the young Lithuanian state, with particular reference to the medium-term effect of the first Lithuanian Zionist conference which took place in Vilna on December 5-8,1918.Not only did this decide that all active Zionist organizations unite to form one Zionist Union of Lithuania; it also adopted four “Political Resolutions” and six “Decisions Concerning Lithuania,” which, inter alia, entailed a claim for constitutionally warranted national autonomy as well as a determination of the position to support the re-establishment of a Lithuanian state and to join the ranks of the Taryba, the Council of State, exercising the legislative powers according to the 1918 democratic Constitution of Lithuania. The appearance of a new independent Lithuanian state on the political map launched a new period in the history of the Jewish community in this region. The revival of Jewish politics started a fight for influence on the Jewish street, and as a consequence, as elsewhere in the world, the Zionist movement in Lithuania was not a united movement for long. It broke into competing political factions, whose influence varied over time. The Zionist movement in Lithuania was represented by General, Socialist, Religious and Revisionist trends. Its branches spread very quickly and were active even in the smaller shtetls from the early 1920s until the 1926 coup d’ėtat, which marked a regression in the constitutional life of the state and largely undid what the Zionist movement had achieved politically.In so far as the demise of the Jewish national autonomy movement put an end to active Zionist politics, the Zionists had to relocate the implementation of their programmatic ideas in order to strengthen other possible spheres for propagating their ideology. More intensive support of economic, social, cultural, and educational associations became their main work, which at least ensured that they would maintain those positions in which they had retained some scope for impact. The political rhetoric of Zionism had been focused on the image of Palestine as the historical Jewish homeland, on the role of the individual in history, and on the future of the Jewish nation in Erctz Israel; challenged by a retrograde constitutional practice, Lithuanian Zionists succeeded in convincing the others that being Jewish meant to be a member of a single, normal nation, which has ideals, as well as concrete interests “here and now.”.