Metadata: The Jewish Cultural-Educational Society "Tarbut" in Poland, Area Office of Vilnius
Collection
- Country:
- Lithuania
- Holding institution:
- Central State Archives of Lithuania
- Holding institution (official language):
- Lietuvos centrinis valstybės archyvas
- Postal address:
- O. Milašiaus 21, LT-10102, Vilnius
- Phone number:
- (8 5) 247 7830
- Web address:
- http://www.archyvai.lt/lt/lcva.html
- Email:
- lcva@archyvai.lt
- Reference number:
- f. 295
- Title:
- The Jewish Cultural-Educational Society "Tarbut" in Poland, Area Office of Vilnius
- Title (official language):
- Žydų kultūros ir švietimo draugijos „Tarbut“ Lenkijoje Vilniaus skyrius
- Creator/accumulator:
- Jewish Cultural-Educational Society "Tarbut" in Poland, Area Office of Vilnius
- Date(s):
- 1923/1940
- Language:
- Hebrew
- Yiddish
- Polish
- Extent:
- 54 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection is composed of materials from the area office of the Tarbut Society in Vilnius (see Archival History for other collections that include materials from Tarbut in Vilnius and from interwar Lithuania). The majority of the materials in the collection are from the 1930s.
A notable part of the collection highlights the contact the Tarbut schools and other institutions had with the Polish authorities: correspondence on the establishment of kindergartens, schools, summer camps and teachers' courses in Vilnius and other localities in the region; information on the appointment of teachers and directors; correspondence on financial issues and the supervision of educational activities (including educational plans, the schools' statutes and lists of pupils).
Another part of the collection comprises various materials, administrative and otherwise, of the area office: correspondence with the head office in Warsaw; lists of the educational institutions belonging to the Tarbut network in Vilnius and the region and correspondence with these institutions; statutes from the institutions run by Tarbut and a statute of Tarbut in Poland (1938); circulars and other materials issued by the central committee of Tarbut and by the area office, including a brochure on Jewish agricultural courses which took place in Volodymyr-Volynsky in 1938-39); and correspondence with various Jewish and non-Jewish organizations, including a 1939 correspondence with TOZ concerning pupils' meals. The area office's materials also include educational plans and lists of lessons given at various institutions, lists of educational equipment, including books, and data on staff members and members of parents' committees in various institutions.
Financial data can be also found in the collection, including the budget plans of various institutions run by Tarbut and lists of incomes and expenses.
Several files include data on hiring teachers and other employees of the society in the area of Vilnius, lists of teachers and school directors and papers from a teachers' employment office which was run by Tarbut and the Jewish teachers' organisation in Poland, including correspondence and questionnaires completed by teachers in the late 1930s.
- Archival history:
-
The Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940 put an end to the legal activities of Jewish organisations in Vilnius, including Jewish educational institutions. Exact information concerning the fate of the collection after the Soviet takeover and during the Nazi occupation is not available. During the Soviet period, it was deposited at the Central State Archive of the Lithuanian SSR in Vilnius, predecessor of the modern Central State Archive of Lithuania.
The documents of Tarbut in Lithuania (Kaunas) and of the Tarbut teachers' seminary in Vilnius comprise separate fonds in the Central State Archive of Lithuania: LCVA f. 552 and f. 222 respectively. Some of the documents from the Teachers' seminary in Vilnius are also held by YIVO in New York (Collection RG 23).
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Tarbut was established in Moscow in 1917 as a Zionist cultural and educational society with the goal of developing Hebrew-language culture and education. In Soviet Russia Tarbut was outlawed in 1919, but it was able to continue and broaden its activities in Poland, Lithuania and several other countries in Eastern Europe. The branch of Tarbut in Vilnius was established in the mid-1920s as part of the Tarbut network in Poland. It maintained an extensive network of educational institutions ranging from kindergartens to professional schools and a teachers' seminar. In 1939-40, after the annexation of Vilnius to Lithuania, Lithuanian Tarbut took responsibility for Tarbut’s educational network in the city (see LCVA f. 552).
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of one inventory, which is arranged in thematic order.
- Access, restrictions:
- The collection is open for reference at LCVA.
- Finding aids:
- An inventory in Lithuanian is available at the Lithuanian Central State Archive. The inventory is also accessible at the Lithuanian Archives' website. Inventories and descriptions in Polish and Hebrew are available at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People.
- Links to finding aids:
- https://eais-pub.archyvai.lt/eais/faces/pages/forms/search/F3001.jspx
- Yerusha Network member:
- Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People
- Author of the description:
- Alex Valdman, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, 2014
