The Litvaks: A History of the Jews of Lithuania, with Ken Blady

Tuesdays, March 30 -April 27, 10:30am – 12:30pm

Ken Blady surveys the origins of Lithuanian Jewry, including early migrations into Lithuania and Vilna: the “Jerusalem” of Eastern European Jewry. Examine the world of the Lithuanian shtetl. Challenges between the Litvaks and the Galicianers; the Czarist annexation of Eastern Europe and the Lithuanian Pale of Settlement. Explore Lithuania’s greatest rabbis: Elijah the Gaon of Vilna, Yisrael Meir Kagan, a.k.a. the Chafetz Chaim, Abraham Isaac Kook, Chief Rabbi of Palestine, the Soloveitchik dynasty, Aaron Kotler and Eliezer Schach; Israel Salanter and ideas and events such as Mussar (Ethics and Morality) Movement; the assassination of Czar Alexander II; the May Laws and the stampede to America; the rise of the Bund and Jewish radicalism; Lithuanian Jewry between two world wars; the Nazis’ annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry and, finally, Lithuanian Jewry in the post-Soviet period.

Presented by California State University, Concord OLLI.  Tuition: $50 members, $90 non-members. Register via link below. If you have problems registering online, call Bridget Wallerstein, (925)  602-6776 or email Ken.