This is a photograph of a communal Seder which took place in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1991. A large group of people are standing at long tables holding glasses of wine as they participate in the kiddush. The men are wearing kippot, and everyone is dressed in festive clothing. The room is decorated with a string of Israeli flags. The Seder was the first communal Seder celebrated in Lithuania after gaining independence from the Soviet Union in March 1990. The photograph, which is from the Centropa website, belongs to Frida Zimanene, who is pictured second from the left in a light-coloured dress holding a glass of wine.
Frida Zimanene talked about her life in a biography that was recorded with Centropa. She was born in Kaunas (also known as Kovno), Lithuania in the 1920s. Her father was a clothes designer and her mother had a small shop. Her Jewish family was not particularly religious, but they observed many Jewish traditions. Frida remembers eating traditional Jewish foods such as cholent and hamentaschen in her home. She recalls that her family cooked their cholent at the neighbouring bakery in a pot that was marked with their name so as to differentiate it from the other families’ pots. While the family did not observe Kashrut or observe Shabbat strictly, they attended the services at the nearby Tailor’s Synagogue and had a festive meal on Rosh Hashanah and her mother fasted on Yom Kippur. Frida remembers the festive processions with the Torah scroll on Simchat Torah and lighting a silver Chanukiya and eating latkes made by their Lithuanian maid at Chanuka. The family also celebrated Pesach by thoroughly cleaning their home, buying new clothes, and buying matza at the synagogue. Frida attended a Jewish school where she learned about Jewish traditions. In her interview Frida talked about the large variety of schools and Jewish youth movements. Her family followed the news in a Jewish newspaper, Folksblat, and were thus aware of the growing danger coming from Germany. When the Soviets came to power in Lithuania in 1940, Frida and her family were relieved, preferring them over the Fascists (Germans). However, in 1941, the Germans entered Vilna and established a ghetto; many of Frida’s family members were among the 100,000 Jews who perished there. Frida herself spent the war working for the Communist party in the Soviet Union. After the war, Frida and her husband lived a comfortable life in Soviet Lithuania, but the organised Jewish community did not survive under communist rule. When Lithuania gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, Frida was working for the Lithuanian Culture Fund, representing the Jewish community. It was in this capacity that she organized the first public Seder in Lithuania since Soviet rule.
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The Jews of Vilna, Lithuania – Jews were officially granted approval to live in Vilna, the capital of Lithuania in 1593. By the mid-seventeenth century, Jews made up a quarter of the city’s population. However, after the city was occupied in 1655 by Russia, the Jewish population declined. Jewish life continued despite pogroms and blood libels, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the city began to transform into a centre for Torah studies, culminating in the eighteenth century with the Gaon of Vilna who founded the Mitnagdim movement against the Hassidic movement. By the nineteenth century, the city was also home to Hassidic communities, Mitnagdim communities, and members of the Haskalah (secular enlightment movement), and a variety of schools, yeshivahs, and cultural and political societies were formed. Vilna was also a hub for the written word, with some of the first Hebrew journals printed in its printing presses. Vilna was so vibrant with Jewish life that it was nicknamed the “Jerusalem of Lithuania.” In the late nineteenth century, a large number of Jews emigrated from Vilna to the United States and other countries. In the twentieth century more Jews left for Palestine as a result of the city’s very active Zionist movement. When the Nazis invaded Vilna in June 1941, the Jewish population was about 60,000. In the first two months approximately 20,000 Jews were killed. The Vilna Ghetto was established in August 1941. A strong resistance movement in the ghetto carried out a number of successful operations against the Nazi rule. Most of the Jews of Vilna were shot to death in the forest of Ponar or deported to the camps, but some survived by escaping to the forests and joining the partisans. After World War II about 16,000 Jews lived in Vilna, but under Soviet rule there was no organised community in the city. Lithuania became independent in 1990, and it is estimated that the majority of the approximately 2000-strong Lithuanian Jewish community live in Vilna. The community has two active Jewish schools.
Passover (Pesach) – Passover (Pesach) – Pesach, one of the three pilgrimage festivals, celebrates the freedom of the Israelites from Egypt that is described in the biblical book of Exodus. A main feature of the Pesach celebration is the Seder which is conducted in the home. The text of the Seder, as written in the Haggadah, tells the story of the Exodus with the aid of symbolic foods, songs, and discussion. As a reminder of the rushed manner in which the Israelites left Egypt, matzah (unleavened bread) is eaten during Pesach and chametz (leavened bread) is removed from the home. It is traditional to clean one’s house prior to Pesach and to perform a ceremony to remove and nullify any chametz that is in one’s possession.
