Under the Nazi occupation of Poland, if a Jew in Vilna was caught bringing outside goods into the city’s ghetto, they risked paying with their life. Yet a group of Jewish writers and thinkers, a portion of those compelled by the Nazis to aid in the looting of Vilna’s storied institutions of Jewish culture, smuggled…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Vilna writer Avrom Karpinovitch dedicated his life to describing the colorful personalities of the lower class and criminal element of his city on the eve of the Holocaust. In this video he tells us about Tall Tamara, the Jewish streetwalker; Avrom Mosevski, the glutton; and Gedalke the…
Some 75 years ago, a group of Jews under German occupation in Vilna was assigned to assist Nazi authorities in curating books and other cultural items destined for shipment to Germany. There, the selection of Judaica materials was to be conserved as a collection of artifacts from an extinct people. Some items were indeed shipped…
“Holocaust Escape Tunnel,” the latest episode in the PBS science series “Nova” follows a group of scholars and engineers as they use the latest ground radar techniques to re-discover an important piece of Jewish history in Vilna. Napoleon called Vilna (now officially Vilnius) the “Jerusalem of the North.” It was home to Elijah ben Solomon…
A radar survey has found that significant pieces of Lithuania’s largest synagogue complex, which was damaged by the Nazis and destroyed by the Soviets, still remain but are buried underground. The ground penetrating radar survey conducted in June in Vilnius (previously called Vilna) by a joint team of academics from Israel and the United States…
100 Years Ago An entire family of Italians is in Beth Israel Hospital for circumcisions after converting to Judaism. Joseph Petrigliano and his three sons, who live on Orchard Street in Corona, part of Long Island, N.Y., decided to convert to Judaism after Petrigliano’s Jewish wife, an immigrant from Galicia, told him of her recurring…
Cut 3 large leeks and 2 Spanish onions into small pieces, and sauté in butter. Add 3 diced hard-boiled eggs, 6 tablespoons butter, 4 tablespoons bread crumbs, 3 diced scallions and [chopped fresh] dill. Add 2 raw eggs and some salt, mix well. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a pot and add the leek mixture….
Wyman Brent may be about the most unlikely person you could find to establish a new Jewish library in the Baltic nation of Lithuania. Brent is neither a scholar nor an intellectual. He doesn’t speak Lithuanian and isn’t even Jewish. He is a wiry, soft-spoken, long-haired atheist from California; the type of man who signs…
100% of profits support our journalism
