Judaism in Lithuania - Early History

Early History

As early as the 8th century Jews lived in parts of the Lithuanian territory. Beginning with that period they conducted trade between Russia, Lithuania, and the Baltic, especially with Danzig, Julin (Vineta or Wollin, in Pomerania), and other cities on the Vistula, Oder, and Elbe.

The origin of the Jews of Lithuanian has been the subject of much speculation. It is believed that they were made up of two distinct streams of Jewish immigration. The older and significantly smaller of the two entered the territory that would later become the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the east. These early immigrants spoke Judeo-Slavic dialects which distinguished them from the later Jewish immigrants who entered the region from the Germanic lands.

While the origin of these eastern Jews is not certain, historical evidence places Jewish refugees from Babylonia, Palestine, the Byzantine Empire and other Jewish refugees and settlers in the lands between the Baltic and Black Seas that would become part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The later and much larger stream of immigration originated in the 12th century and received an impetus from the persecution of the German Jews by the Crusaders. The traditional language of the vast majority of Jews of Lithuania, Yiddish, is based largely upon the Medieval German spoken by the western Germanic Jewish immigrants.

The peculiar conditions that prevailed in Lithuania compelled the first Jewish settlers to adopt a different mode of life from that followed by their western co-religionists. In the Lithuania of that day there were no cities in the western sense of the word, no Magdeburg Rights or close guilds.

Some of the cities which later became the important centers of Jewish life in Lithuania were at first mere villages. Grodno, one of the oldest, was first mentioned in the chronicles of 1128. Navahrudak was founded somewhat later by Yaroslav; Kerlov in 1250; Voruta and Twiremet in 1252; Eiragola in 1262; Golschany and Kaunas in 1280; Telšiai, Vilnius, Lida, and Trakai in 1320.