Latvian Jews - in Independent Latvia

In Independent Latvia

On June 11–17, 1993, the First World Congress of Latvian Jews was held in Riga. It was attended by delegates from Israel, the US, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Britain, South Africa, and Australia.

Two desecrations of Holocaust memorials, in Jelgava and in the Biķernieki Forest, took place in 1993. The delegates of the World Congress of Latvian Jews who came to Biķernieki to commemorate the 46,500 Latvian Jews shot there, were shocked by the sight of swastikas and the word Judenfrei daubed on the memorial. Articles of antisemitic content appeared in the Latvian nationalist press. The main topics of these articles were the collaboration of Jews with the Communists in the Soviet period, Jews tarnishing Latvia's good name in the West, and Jewish businessmen striving to control the Latvian economy.

In the early 2000s (decade), after a decade of mass emigration, around 9,000 Jews remained in Latvia, mostly in Riga, where an Ohr Avner Chabad school was in operation. Ohel Menachem also operated a day school, as well as a kindergarten, and an active synagogue operates in the Old City section of Riga. The city also contains a Holocaust memorial on the site of the wartime ghetto. The main Jewish cemetery is located on the city's eastern fringe.