Metadata: The Jewish National Council of Lithuania and the Jewish Fraction in the Seimas
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. 620
- Title:
- The Jewish National Council of Lithuania and the Jewish Fraction in the Seimas
- Title (official language):
- Žydų tautos tarybos ir Seimo žydų frakcijos
- Creator/accumulator:
- Jewish National Council of Lithuania
- Date(s):
- 1920/1927
- Language:
- Lithuanian
- Yiddish
- Hebrew
- Russian
- German
- French
- English
- Extent:
- 185 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The archival collection of the Jewish National Council in Lithuania represents the various aspects of the council's activities as well as data on the council’s interactions with other Jewish institutions in Lithuania, the Lithuanian government and foreign Jewish organisations.
The collection includes lists of the council's members and protocols of their meetings, and correspondence with local Jewish communities in Lithuania on such issues as elections to local community councils, communal budgets (in certain cases the files include data such as an account on the budget of the Community of Panevezys in 1920), educational and relief activities.
Correspondence, petitions and pleas on Lithuanian policy toward the Jewish population can also be found in the collection, including protests against a bill on mandatory Sunday rest, which was discussed in the Seimas, and protests against the appointment of Bernard Friedman as the minister of Jewish Affairs. Several papers refer to the service of Jews in the Lithuanian army, such as correspondence on the provision of kosher meals to Jewish soldiers and a 1920 letter which mentions a proposal by the Lithuanian army to appoint a military rabbi. Some documents mention elections to the Lithuanian Seimas and include correspondence and lists of Jewish candidates from various communities (see below for the materials on the Jewish fraction in the Seimas). Participation of Jewish representatives in municipal elections is also mentioned in several documents.
Other files mention the All-Lithuanian Congresses of Jewish Communities and of the National Assembly of the Jews of Lithuania, including lists of the meetings' participants (including personal data), protocols, invitations and correspondence (including the greetings of the Chief Rabbi of Palestine Avraham Yitshak Kook to the second Congress of Jewish Communities, and a response to Shimon Dubnov's greetings on the occasion of the first session of the National Assembly).
Several files refer to Jewish political life in Lithuania, including correspondence with the representatives of the He-Haluts movement and Tseire Tsiyon party in Lithuania (several circulars, account books and other documents related to the latter can also be found in the collection) and data on Jewish immigration to Palestine.
A substantial part of the collection comprises documentation on various relief activities: organisation of aid to Jewish refugees of war in the early 1920s, including lists of refugees; assistance to Jewish artisans and farmers including data on Jewish agricultural colonies and farmers and leaflets of the Association of Jewish Farmers in Lithuania; organisation of medical care including correspondence with OZE and other organisations and data on Jewish medical institutions; and data on the funding and maintenance of Jewish orphanages. More than a few files include applications for financial and other assistance, lists of assistance recipients and correspondence including a letter mentioning the transfer of relief money to Rabbi Hayim Ozer Grodzenski, who was intended to supervise its distribution among the needy Jewish residents of Vilnius. Materials relating to Jewish banking in Lithuania are also included in the collection, such as correspondence with Jewish banks in various localities, lists of shareholders (such lists are available, for instance, from Kretinga and Skuodas) and protocols of shareholders' meetings, such as a 1920 protocol from Ukmerge.
Several files comprise data on the council’s activities on behalf of victims of war, hunger and pogroms in Russia and Ukraine, including transfer of goods and money from and via Lithuania. In several cases the documents also mention relief activities among victims of fires and pogroms in Lithuania, such as a fire in the town of Pasvalys. Some files mention cases of antisemitic harassment and vandalism, such as a 1924 call to boycott a cinema in the town of Kybartai due to the antisemitism of its owner and a report on a desecration of a Jewish cemetery in the town of Raguva.
The council was also engaged in the supervision of Jewish educational networks and institutions in Lithuania. Accordingly, the collection contains correspondence with various Jewish communities and educational organizations including ORT and Kultur-Lige on questions of funding, employment of educational staff, construction of school buildings and purchasing of books and other educational materials. In certain cases, the files contain lists and photographs of students, such as a 1925 photograph of the pupils at the Yitshak Elhanan orphanage in Kaunas.
Other materials reflect the development of Jewish culture in Lithuania. The council's archive includes correspondence on the support of Jewish publishing in Lithuania, the organisation of exhibitions and lectures (including lectures by such authors as David Bergelson, Nahum Shtif and Leyb Kvitko), and on the material support of Jewish writers (correspondence from 1922 mentions the transfer of aid to the poet Saul Tchernichowsky). Several documents reflect efforts to promote Jewish historical research in Lithuania: an initiative by I. Elyashiv (Ba'al-Mahshavot) and I. Leizerovich to establish a Jewish historiographical commission and letters by Ben-Tsion Kats on the collecting of Jewish documental heritage and by E. Tcherikower on the distribution of his historical works in Lithuania.
Another part of the collection includes the materials of the Jewish fraction in the Lithuanian Seimas. The materials include the fraction's correspondence with Jewish communities and Jewish organisations on various issues: the maintenance of Jewish national autonomy in Lithuania, including the support of Jewish education; the struggle against the anti-Jewish measures of the Lithuanian government, such as the bill on mandatory Sunday rest or the liquidation of the Jewish National Council; and the process of metrication, performed by local communities.
- Archival history:
- The collection is kept in the Lithuanian Central State Archive, along with other materials of interwar Lithuanian government institutions.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The Jewish National Council (Natsional-Rat, Va'ad Ha-Arets) was, along with the Jewish Ministry and the All-Lithuanian Congresses of Jewish Communities, one of the main institutions of Jewish national autonomy in interwar Lithuania. The council consisted of 34 members, representing different groups and parties, who were elected at the first meeting of the All-Lithuanian Congresses of Jewish Communities in January 1920. The Council elected a working committee which included 10 members. In 1920, S. Rosenboim was elected as the council’s president. The council was re-elected by the Congress of Jewish Communities in 1922 and by the National Assembly of the Jews of Lithuania in 1923 (after the latter re-election the number of council members was raised to 40).
The National Council was conceived as a parliament-like institution, representing the Lithuanian Jewish community before the Lithuanian Government and foreign Jewish organisations. Along with the Jewish ministry, the council supervised a wide array of communal activities in the fields of social welfare, education, culture and medicine.
Despite its broad activities and prominent status in the system of Jewish autonomy, the council lacked any official recognition from the Lithuanian government. With the stabilisation of the Lithuanian state, the autonomy granted to national minorities, including Jews, was gradually undermined. The council’s activities were suspended on September 1924, shortly after the abolition of the Ministry for Jewish Affairs.
The Jewish fraction in the Lithuanian Seimas functioned during the second and the third terms of the Seimas, between May 1923 and March 1927.
- Access points: locations:
- Lithuania
- Access points: persons/families:
- Bergel’son, D.
- Elyashiv, I
- Kats, Ben-Tsion
- Kvitko, L. M.
- Leizerovich, I
- Shtif, N.
- Tcherikower, E
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of two inventories. The first inventory includes the materials of the Jewish National Council, whereas the second lists the documents of the parliamentary group in the Lithuanian Seimas.
- Access, restrictions:
- The collection is open for reference at LCVA.
- Finding aids:
- An inventory is available online in Lithuanian at the website of the Lithuanian Archives. Inventories in Lithuanian 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
