Lithuanians or Poles - The identity dilemma of the Jews of Vilna

• In Event: The Baltic Jewish Experience: Dilemmas and Responses

Abstract

One of the consequences of the occupation of the Vilnius region by Poland in the early 1920s, although of course not the most important of them, was the emergence of an identity dilemma among many Jews who lived in and around the city. On the one hand, these Jews belonged to the "Litvaks" group, which developed its own unique concept of identity over the previous centuries. This identity was formed, among other things, as part of the complex relationship between the Jewish community in Lithuania and the Jewish community in Poland, when the attitude of the latter towards the "Litvaks" was characterized by patronage, disdain, and even worse. This was due to its larger and stronger position, both politically and economically. The result of this attitude was the strengthening of the Litvak identity among those who saw it as the defining element of their cultural existence. However, some local Jews were significantly influenced by the notable presence of Polish culture in the city, leading them to adopt it partially or fully, along with self-perception as "Polish Jews". This dilemma was not separated, of course, from the political-national conflict between Lithuanians and Poles over the identity of this city. The Polish occupation of Vilna was seen by those Jews who adopted the Polish culture as a kind of completion of a desired historical process and as an opportunity to shed the remnants of the Litvak identity. In my lecture I will analyze the roots of this complex process, its social, cultural, and political meanings, as well as its consequences for the identity of these Jews in the years after World War II.

Short Bio

Mordechai (Motti) Zalkin is a professor emeritus of modern Jewish history in the Jewish History department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. His special field of interest is the cultural, social, educational, and religious history of East European Jewry, mainly in the Baltic region. Among his books: The Jewish Enlightenment in the Russian Empire – Social Aspects [2000]; Lithuanian Jewish History – New Perspectives [2009]; Modernizing Jewish Education in Nineteenth Century Eastern Europe [2016]; Rabbi and Community in the Pale [2017], as well as many articles on various aspects of the history of Lithuanian Jewry. His current research topic is Jewish life and identity in interwar Lithuanian urban space.

Author

• Mordechai Zalkin, Ben-Gurion University