Metadata: Ministry of Jewish Affairs
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. 1129
- Title:
- Ministry of Jewish Affairs
- Title (official language):
- Žydų reikalų ministerija
- Creator/accumulator:
- Ministry of Jewish Affairs
- Date(s):
- 1919/1926
- Language:
- Lithuanian
- Yiddish
- Hebrew
- Russian
- German
- Extent:
- 440 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection is composed of paperwork and correspondence from the Lithuanian Ministry of Jewish Affairs, representing the various directions of its activity.
The ministry's internal administrative paperwork contains data on its employees and their salaries, account books and address lists, protocols and position papers on legal issues (including a memorandum of J. Wygodzki and Z. Shabad on the status of the city of Vilnius) and the ministry's incoming and outgoing correspondence. Documents referring to the ministry's liquidation can also be found in the collection.
A substantial part of the Ministry's materials reflect its interactions with the Jewish communities and institutions of Lithuania. The collection includes memos, protocols, correspondence and statistical data on the Jewish population in Lithuania (including lists of pupils' names and communal functionaries) and data on various economic and social activities, such as medical services and the organisation of Jewish cooperatives. The collection also includes data on the organising of the All-Lithuanian Congress of Jewish Communities in 1920 and 1922 and the functions of the Jewish National Council (natsional-rat), including correspondence and memos.
The ministry maintained connections with foreign Jewish communities and relief organisations as well as with Jewish press in various countries, which is reflected in the collection.
As part of its coordination and supervision of Jewish affairs, the ministry had extensive correspondence with local Jewish communities throughout Lithuania concerning the communities' functioning and authority, the employment of local functionaries including rabbis and teachers and the election of the communities' governing bodies. The collection also includes data on such issues as taxation, education, medicine and sanitation.
The ministry's activities in the field of Jewish education are also reflected in the collection. It includes data on the establishment of Jewish schools, teachers' seminaries and orphanages, and their budgets and educational programmes (several documents refer to the organisation of teaching Lithuanian in Jewish schools); contacts with Jewish educational networks (Tarbut, Kultur-lige, ORT and Yavne); data on the training of Jewish teachers, including lists, personal data, personal histories and photographs; and correspondence with the Lithuanian authorities and foreign organisations and institutions on questions of education, including correspondence with universities in Estonia, Latvia and other countries on the training of Jewish students from Lithuania.
The collection also reflects the Ministry's interactions with Lithuanian non-Jewish organisations and institutions: the participation of Jewish parties and politicians in the political life of Lithuania, including the activities of the Jewish fraction of the Sejm; communications with Lithuanian educational authorities on the status and functioning of the Jewish educational system; correspondence with military authorities on such subjects as drafting Jewish soldiers into the military (several letters address the question of recruiting rabbis and Jewish students for the Lithuanian army), the tensions on the Polish border and the use of Jewish property for military needs.
Certain documents mention complaints raised by Jewish citizens against the Lithuanian authorities, including complaints against police officers and soldiers. In several cases, pogroms and other anti-Jewish violence are mentioned (mostly pogroms in various localities which took place during the Lithuanian-Polish war; one of the files includes correspondence with various communities concerning destroyed or damaged synagogues).
Several files in the collection reflect the ministry's activities in the field of Jewish emigration and immigration. These include correspondence on immigration and naturalisation of Jewish refugees (including a document referring to the entry visa granted to Simon Dubnov in 1922), relief activities among the refugees, the granting of working and residence permits and Jewish emigration to America and Palestine, including lists.
- Archival history:
- The collection is kept in the Lithuanian Central State Archive, along with other materials of the interwar Lithuanian government institutions.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
From December 1918, the Lithuanian government (at first provisional, and later the regular governments) included a minister without portfolio acting as a minister for Jewish affairs. In the early 1920s a ministry apparatus was established, which in the height of its activity engaged around 30 employees. The ministry's activities included the supervision of Jewish educational organisations, social aid, regulatory and organisational activities among the Jewish communities, legal advice and advocacy.
The ministry was a part of a broader system of Jewish national autonomy, which included, among other institutions, the Jewish National Council (natsional-rat) and the All-Lithuanian Congress of Jewish Communities.
From 1922 on, with the stabilisation of the Lithuanian state, the autonomy granted to national minorities, including Jews, was gradually undermined. The Ministry for Jewish Affairs was abolished in mid-1924. Between 1919 and 1924, J. Wygodzki, M. Soloveitchik, Yu. Brutskus, B. Friedman and S. Rosenboim served as Ministers for Jewish Affairs.
- Access points: locations:
- Lithuania
- 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 is available online in Lithuanian. Inventories in Lithuanian and Russian are available at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People. An inventory in English is available online at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website.
- 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
