Judaism
The Lithuanian Jewish community has roots that go back to before the time of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Lithuania was historically home to a large Jewish community and an important center of Jewish scholarship and culture from the 18th century until the community was almost entirely eliminated during the Holocaust. Before World War II, the Lithuanian Jewish population numbered some 160,000, about 7% of the total population. Vilnius alone had a Jewish community of nearly 100,000, about 45% of the city's total population with over 110 synagogues and 10 yeshivot in the city.
There are still communities of Jews of Lithuanian descent around the world, especially in Israel, the United States, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Brazil and Australia.
According to the 2001 census, there were 1,272 adherents of Rabbinic and Karaite Judaism. About 4,000 Jews were counted in Lithuania during the 2005 census.
Read more about this topic: Christianity In Lithuania
Famous quotes containing the word judaism:
“Christianity is the religion of melancholy and hypochondria. Islam, on the other hand, promotes apathy, and Judaism instills its adherents with a certain choleric vehemence, the heathen Greeks may well be called happy optimists.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)