This is a photograph taken in 1933 of Hana Rayzberg and her class on a Lag B’Omer picnic. Hana grew up in Ludza, Latvia, where she attended a Jewish school. The photograph shows seventeen first- and second-grade students with their tutor, Ella, and a man who is not identified. They are outdoors and trees can be seen in the background. This photograph is an example of the tradition to celebrate Lag B’Omer with picnics, outings, and bonfires.
Hana Rayzberg was born in Ludza, Latvia in 1927 to a family who had lived in Ludza for generations. Her family, like all the Jewish families in the city at that time, was religious, and they celebrated Shabbat and Jewish holidays. Hana remembers the holiday celebrations and the traditional foods that they ate at each one. She attended a Jewish school until high school and learned Hebrew and spoke Yiddish. Since there wasn’t a Jewish high school, after primary school she moved to the non-Jewish high school. A teacher, perhaps a rabbi, would come to the school to teach Jewish studies to the five Jewish students, while the other students attended Christian religious lessons. In 1940, as part of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Latvia was annexed to the Soviet Union. In 1941, Hana and her parents began traveling on foot and by train eastward into the Soviet Union in an attempt to flee from the German Army. They reached Uzbekistan where they were safe, although life was very difficult. After the war, Hana returned to Latvia and moved to Riga where she worked, married, and raised a family.
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Lag B’Omer – Lag B’Omer, literally the 33rd day of the Omer, is a minor holiday celebrated during the Counting of the Omer, the forty-nine-day period between Pesach and Shavuot described in the Torah. According to the Talmud, this period became a time of semi-mourning due to a plague that killed thousands of Rabbi Akiva’s students. Tradition holds that the plague ended on the 33rd day of the Omer (Lag B’Omer), also the day on which Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai – the mystic who, according to tradition wrote the Kabbalistic text, the Zohar – is said to have died. Lag B’Omer is celebrated with bonfires, visits to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s grave on Mt. Meron, and music. Some people also celebrate Lag B’Omer by having their three-year old sons’ first haircuts at Mt. Meron.
Jewish Community of Latvia – Jews arrived in Latvia in the late sixteenth century and grew to be a community of 23,000 by the nineteenth century. Until the end of the nineteenth century, Jews owned land, businesses, and banks and held important positions in the Latvian economy. In 1881, a wave of anti-Semitism spread throughout the Russian Empire and restrictions were placed on Jews, including forcing them to move back to the Pale of Settlement and removing them from government jobs. Many Jews left the country at this time. During World War I, Jews were suspected of being German spies and were deported to the East. After Latvia’s independence in 1918, Jews were again involved in the politics, culture, and economy of the country. In 1940, Latvia came under Soviet rule, and banks and businesses were nationalized. During the Holocaust, the Nazis occupied Latvia, and of the 93,000 Jews who lived in Latvia, only 14,000 survived. After the war, Latvia became part of the Soviet Union and the Jewish community more than doubled when Jews from other parts of Soviet Union arrived there. Latvia became the centre of Zionism and dissent in the Soviet Union, and in the 1970s more than a third of Latvia’s Jews emigrated to Israel, the United States, and Western Europe. Currently, the Jewish community of Latvia numbers 10,000, making it the largest Jewish community in the Baltic states.
