The term “Zionism” derives from the name “Mount Zion,” the historical site of the holy Temple in Jerusalem. Already in early times, the name “Zion” became a synonym for Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel) and a symbol of the belief that the Jews would someday return to the Promised Land. In the 19th century the term “Zionism” was introduced to express the aim of the ideological movement to create a national home for Jews in their historical land of origin. In Eastern Europe, the circles of the “Lovers of Zion,” inspired by the contemporary ideas of national independence and the newly awakened “Jewish question,” existed before the beginning of political Zionism and the convening of the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897.

The history of Zionism is a part of the political and intellectual history of the 19th and 20th centuries, and had its own stages of development independent of state borders and the ruling regimes. From its inception, the Zionist movement was international. In different countries of the Diaspora – due to internal and external factors, including the traditionalism of the Jewish communities – government policies towards the Jews influenced the specific features of the movement.

When the Zionist movement was born, the state of Lithuania did not yet exist. The Jews in the Russian Empire, who lived in the territories of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, so-called Lite, comprised a separate community. It was formed by its own history and cultural traditions, a separate life style and understanding of religion, and the almost universal use of the specifically Lithuanian dialect of Yiddish. While the Litvak community was influenced by ideas of the Enlightenment and late processes of modernization, at the same time it maintained traditional Jewish social patterns and Jewish self-consciousness. Thus, it provided the most favorable environment for developing ideas of nationalism.

After World War I and the Russian Revolution, Lite was divided among three new states (Lithuania, Soviet Belorussia and Poland). The core of the Litvak community became citizens of the Independent Lithuanian Republic. But in this geographical setting it never became a subject for researchers of Zionist history. The historiography of Zionism describes the deep roots of the movement in the consciousness of the Lithuanian Jewish community and its vitality and dominance in Jewish political, cultural, and social life. (Inscriptions on the gravestones of former Lithuanian Jews on the Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem even allude to it). However, the motives for emigration to the “Promised Land” in the middle of the 19th century were totally different from those that led young men to Palestine between the two World Wars. From its beginning, the Zionist movement in Lithuania was an integral part of the World Zionist movement, but even with its international character, its development was necessarily different than in Poland, Germany or Russia. On the other hand, the success of Zionism was not guaranteed by its specifically Litvak character.

Rather than describe the quantitative achievements of Zionism in Lithuania, the main focus of the study is over to examine the political development of the Zionist organization, its attempt to direct the internal transformations study of the Jewish masses, and the changes in its ideological and practical program in the face of new historical and political circumstances.

In particular, this study aims to present the most important ideological and political aspects of the Zionist movement in the context of the development of part of historical Lite, within the Independent Lithuanian Republic. By means of an analysis of the activities of the Zionist organization, it also aims to point out popular stereotypes on this topic due to a general lack of information and historical awareness.

Chronologically, the study encompasses the period from 1906 to 1940, which covers the most important stages of the Zionist movement in the geographical region under consideration. The starting date relates to the fact that in 1906 the central Zionist office for all of Russia was shifted to Vilna (Vilnius). Although this was due, first of all, to external factors, Vilna and the Zionist activists working there ensured the sustained development of the Zionist movement in Lithuanian territory and put into practice an important principle of Zionist ideology, “work in the present.” The study ends with the year of the first Soviet occupation of the Lithuanian Republic, when Zionist activity became “incongruous with national security” and Zionist organizations were closed and many of their leaders were deported. A look at this period of almost four decades offers a retrospective view of the Zionist movement in Lithuanian territory, displaying changes over generations in the Zionist ranks, and displaying the opportunities for political action which were influenced by the geopolitical changes in the region.

The research sources for this monograph are scattered in research collections in various subject areas and of various kinds, and held in different countries. The main and largest part of the documents relevant to the topic is located in the Lithuanian State Archive of History and Lithuanian Central State Archive in Vilnius. A small but important portion of extant materials on Zionist activity in Lithuanian territory is held in the Department of Manuscripts of the Central Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in Vilnius. These materials cover the period of World War I and the early years of the Independent Lithuanian Republic. Sources of similar importance are found in the files of Lithuanian Jewish communities preserved in the archival collections of YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York. These are mainly the materials of various Zionist organizations during the period of Jewish autonomy in the Lithuanian republic (1918–1925). One more group of sources consists of the numerous periodicals published by different Zionist organizations between 1906 and 1912 in Vilna and in the period 1919–1940 in Kovno (Kaunas). These published materials, which provide significant information, are located in the Vilnius University Library and the Martynas Mažvydas National Library.

Numerous memoirs and testimonial literature – Yisker-Bikher – were used as a separate group of sources. These collective personal memoirs are read today against the historical backdrop of the Holocaust and thus lend credence to the pro-Zionist line in the politics of the Jewish community in Lithuania between the wars. On the other hand, however, these sources reflect the role of the individual in general social and political history and provide an understanding of the situation of the Zionist movement and its positions in the entire country at that time.

The world historiography of the Zionist movement, dealing with one or another of its aspects, in encyclopedias, monographs and separate articles, is rich from the geographic, the chronological, and the linguistic point of view. Nevertheless, the history of Zionism in Lithuania is practically untouched in the mentioned historiography. In Soviet Lithuanian historiography, the question of Zionism was analyzed through the “proletarian class positions,” showing it as an implement of Western imperialism. In the last fifteen years no work published in Lithuania on the subject of Lithuanian Jewish history could avoid mentioning the Zionist movement, stressing its vitality and its domination of Jewish political, cultural, and social life in Lithuania between the two world wars, but the topic has never been analyzed in a separate monograph.

The pogroms in Russia in 1880–1882 and in later years raised repeatedly the “Jewish problem” and the flawed solutions to it in both Western and Eastern Europe. Leo Pinsker in Odessa, the author of Autoemancipation, urged a rejection of the Ghetto and, especially, of the Jewish diaspora. This gave the impetus for the establishment of the first “Hoveve Tsiyon” circles, and the inspiration for a network of these circles throughout the Russian empire. “Zionist associations” of various names, such as “Benot Tsiyon” (the daughters of Zion), “Pirhe Tsiyon” (the flowers of Zion), and “Tikvat Tsiyon” (the hope of Zion), spread throughout the territory of Lite after the First Zionist Congress in 1897, and often they were organized on the basis of previous “Hoveve Tsiyon” circles.

Vilna became one of the most important centers of Russian Zionism at the beginning of the twentieth century. There, in the same period as the religious/Orthodox fraction of Zionism, “Mizrahi,” was founded in Vilna (1902), a movement which popularized the idea of theocratic power in the Jewish spiritual center of Eretz Israel, organizations of the socialist-Marxist trend of Zionism multiplied, expressing the rising goal of Jewish national and social liberation.

The growing revolutionary ideas within the Jewish community affected the Zionists, and led to modifications in their program and activities. The short period after the abolition of censorship, in the wake of the 1905 revolution in Russia, was used to publish politically orientated newspapers. Several of the Zionist papers, such as Ha-‘Olam (1908–1912), Dos Yudishe Folk (1906–1908), Der Nayer Veg (1906–1907), Dos Vort (1905–1907) and others, were published in Vilna.

The new program of Zionist policy and activities in Russia was developed by members of the Central Zionist office of Russia and by collaborators of the Russian Zionist press in “the private sector” in Vilna. Two important aspects of it, which later were adopted at the third conference of Russian Zionists in Helsinki (4–10 December, 1906), were stressed: firstly, the principle of “synthetic Zionism,” i.e. parallel political work towards the international recognition of the Jewish right to Eretz Israel, and practical work involving ideological propaganda and material support to stimulate systematic Aliyah and work on settlements in Palestine; and secondly, the notion of “work in the present,” i.e. to work for Jewish minority civil and political rights, even if such activity did not promote specific Zionists goals. Setting their sights on becoming the consolidating political power of the Jewish nation, Zionists oriented their activities to work towards their future vision as well as for the Jewish masses in the Diaspora. This was a substantive shift, which affected the whole of the Zionist movement.

The French Revolution inspired colossal internal socio-cultural changes in the Jewish community in Western Europe. The “acceptance” de jure, that Jews existed as a separate group of society, as a religious community, did not solve the problem of integration and social relations between Jews and non-Jews. The Dreyfus Affair rocked the bases of patriotism of Western Jews to their native countries. It became clear that medieval judeo-phobia had not disappeared, but, refined with the new elements of secular anti-Semitism, arose with new power.

The process of emancipation came late in the Russian empire, on account of slow economic development, and as a result of politics of the Jewish oligarchy and of the Tsarist authorities. In the multicultural, multiethnic Northwestern territories of Russia, where there was also the largest concentration of Jews due to the Pale of Settlement, the interests of several rising national movements coincided. But the Jewish attempts to integrate with the dominant majority were also flawed. Consequently, Jewish public figures were impelled, individually, to raise new ideas and to look for new solutions to old problems.

A group of Jews, influenced by modern ideas in a time of rising national movements, had a vision of one territory, one homeland, and one language. It was not possible for Jews to appeal to a common historical past; moreover, the different conditions of the Jews in Eastern Europe and Western Europe effectively made them strangers to each other. A new dimension of Jewish collective identity had to be found. The only remaining factor which separated Jews from the surrounding societies, and bonded them together, was Judaism. Unlike other national movements which disposed of religion, Zionism was inconceivable without Judaism. The Zionist ideologists used Judaism, secularized by Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment), to form a platform which would unite believers and non-believers in East and West in one nation for the practical solution to the “Jewish question.” Anti-Semitism as an external factor and a catalyst also played a significant role in the process of the consolidation of the Jewish nation.

The rapid growth of the new Jewish movement and its ideas oriented towards the consolidation of national consciousness were in opposition to the policy of the imperial ruling power. The Zionists’ offer to solve the “Jewish question” through emigration was seen by the government as a way of getting rid of part of the Jewish community by their own hands, and at the same time as a way of disorienting the Jewish proletariat and stopping the spread of socialist ideas among them. But the passive observer role of imperial officers changed when the government began to suspect that the Zionists’ ideas were different in practice, i.e. the declared “immediate mass emigration” program was modified so as to fight for the present social and political position of Jews in the empire.

Shortly after the revolution of 1905 there appeared a special government circular stating that all Zionist activity was illegal and forbidden in the Russian empire. In 1907 the order was repeated, and all Zionist organizations had to be eliminated as “dangerous for the state and for society.” Therefore, in a period of two or three years the main activities of Zionists in Vilna were concentrated among a small circle of representatives of the pro-Zionist press.

The activities in smaller centers like Ponevezh (Panevėžys), Mariyampol (Marijampolė), Vilkomir (Ukmergė) and Shavl (Šiauliai) were paralyzed. So that the task would not fail totally, Zionist leaders continued agitation campaigns, collecting money for the Jewish National Fund, and publishing ideological literature in conspiratorial ways. Meetings with colleagues from other cities were organized under the veil of various pretexts, such as visiting relatives, business trips, and the infiltration of members in other legal Jewish organizations. Avoiding the repressions of the Tsarist regime, Zionist activists often left for abroad, and were replaced by some orator, instructor or agitator from a neighboring Zionist center. Zionists found a niche in the activity of Jewish educational institutions. On their initiative, aside from the general subjects taught in Russian, subjects of Jewish history and literature were included in the educational programs.

Nonetheless, the Zionists had to fight for influence within the Jewish communities, and firstly with the strong opposition of the Bund (Lithuanian, Polish and Russian Jewish Workers’ Union). Zionist-Socialists were eliminated from the International because of the intrigues of socialist parties. The Zionist organization was criticized for its conservatism, its strong bourgeois influence, and its inadequate reactions to the rapidly changing processes within the state and society. In turn, Zionists gave as good as they got, declaring themselves as the only power capable of bringing the Jewish nation to real independence, when other Jewish parties were pursuing a policy of assimilation, denying their Jewishness and raising other interests higher than the national one.

Moreover, the qualitative and quantitative decline of the Zionist movement in Russia was influenced by the regime’s limitations as well as by the inner crises and disagreements among supporters of different Zionist fractions, which debated among themselves the future of the movement, policy on the colonization of Palestine, etc. Consequently, in these circumstances a lot depended on individual initiative, contacts and the financial means of local centers.

At the end of 1905 Vilna became a political and organizational center of the whole Russian Zionist movement, and until 1911 its central bureau was located there. At the Helsinki Congress in 1906, there was elected a new central committee of the Russian Zionist organization. Its members became the already well-known Zionist activists: the brothers Isaac and Boris Goldberg, Julius Brutzkus, Leib Jaffe, Joseph Lurie, Daniel Pasmanik and Simeon Rosenbaum. They initiated several unfruitful attempts to legalize the organization and worked hard to translate the Helsinki Program into action. The participation of pro-Zionist candidates in the elections to the Duma was foreseen as one of the ways to defend Jewish rights in the Diaspora.

The biggest contribution to Zionist activity in Lite in that period was made by the brothers Goldberg, who on their own example put the theoretical points of “synthetic Zionism” into practice. They worked consistently in the field of colonization (the establishment of new settlements in Palestine), were members of the executives of the most important Zionist institutions, patronized Jewish educational institutions, and subsidized the publication of the Jewish press. They were also active and respectable members of the Jewish community in Vilna.

The arrests, searches, subsequent confiscations of ideological materials, legal trials and penal sentences, which lasted several years and ended in 1912, served to disperse the ranks of Zionists in Vilna. Many members were forced to emigrate, the selling of “shekels” declined to a minimum, cultural educational activity was in stagnation, and the organizational center moved to St. Petersburg.

The body of sources on Lithuanian Zionist activities during the First World War is poor. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 forced the leaders of the Zionist organization and its committees in separate localities to revise their previous policy and to take a clear stand on their position vis-ą-vis the belligerents. It was decided to maintain a neutral position. During the years 1914–1916 Zionist activities were curtailed severely in Lithuanian territory. Along with other Jews, many Zionists were regarded as “potential German spies” and exiled by tsarist decree to the interior of Russia. Those remaining in German-occupied territory attempted to promote cultural activity and to organize education in Hebrew. The distribution of shares (actions) in the Jewish Colonial Bank or the collection of donations for the Jewish National Fund was almost impossible because of the poor economic situation of the Jewish community.

As the war drew to its end, the Zionist movement began to organize itself more actively on Lithuanian territory, to make contacts with German Zionists, and through them with the central bureau of the World Zionists. On October 14, 1917, a Zionist meeting was organized in Vilna. Its main resolutions were as follows: (1) the confirmation that Zionists did not interrupt their vision of, and work towards, the establishment of a Jewish National Home even in war time and (2) the Zionist movement, concerned with the whole Jewish nation, should win the moral right to act on behalf of it. More arguments claiming this right were given in the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, which was seen as a Zionist political and diplomatic triumph.

Opinions about cooperation with Lithuanians diverged in the Zionist camp. After long negotiations and delays, the first Lithuanian Zionist conference took place in Vilna on December 5–8, 1918. It was decided that all active Zionist organizations unite to form one Zionist Union of Lithuania. A pro-Lithuanian orientation on the part of Lithuanian Jewry was sustained during this conference, and on the initiative of organization leaders S. Rosenbaum, J. Wigodski and others a decision was taken to support the re-establishment of a Lithuanian state and join the ranks of the Taryba. Aware of the repression under the tsar and Soviet Russia, and of the violence inspired by Polish patriotism, which Jews had already experienced, Zionists took a position, with the agreement of the World Zionist central bureau, which was guided by their own interests, namely, to be concerned with the protection of the Jewish community, and to get maximal benefit from their support of the new state in the international arena.

The appearance of a new independent Lithuanian state on the political map launched a new period in the history of the Jewish community in this region. The revival of Jewish politics started a fight for influence on the Jewish street. The Zionist organization and its statutes were registered in the head office in Kovno on May 14, 1919, but sources show that branches of Zionist organizations already existed de facto before they were registered de jure. The organization was headed by Dr. Benjamin Berger, Rubin Rubinstein, and Sulim Wolf for the entire interwar period.

Being a part of the World Zionist organization and a participant in the World Congresses, the Zionist organization in Lithuania maintained a common ideology and political line, and in its practical work attempted to realize the points of the Basel program and the ideals of the movement. The organization was divided into separate departments responsible for cultural, educational, and economic development, and for Palestine and National Fund activities. A number of ways were envisaged for fulfilling these tasks.

Nevertheless, as elsewhere in the world, the Zionist movement in Lithuania was not a united movement for long. It broke into competing political factions, more or less influential at different periods. The Zionist movement in Lithuania was represented by General, Social, Religious and Revisionist trends. Its branches spread very quickly and were already active even in the smaller shtetls in the early 1920s.

The General Zionist party was most influential in the 1920s, on account of its respectable members, intellectuals, and famous personalities, who held sway over the Jewish community and over the party’s modest policy. Also, it was identified with the whole Zionist organization in the eyes of the Jewish community. The General Zionists associated themselves with the right-liberal political wing, attempting to follow a compromising political line on the questions of both the Diaspora and Palestine, that is, they were concerned with the improvement of the social and economic situation of Lithuanian Jews, and agitated for legal, modest individual and/or organized emigration to Palestine. They also played an intermediary role between the Socialist Zionists and their biggest opponents, the Revisionists.

The social stratification of the electorate of the General Zionist camp shows that the main supporters of the party were people from the moderate and wealthy social strata. This fact was used to disadvantage in arguments with the Socialist Zionists about the future state government in the Jewish National Home. The 1930s were unlucky years for the General Zionist fraction. They became less influential among the Jewish communities and at the same time in the World Zionist organization, on account of a split into two separate A and B lists. This arose from different outlooks on the basic cultural and political activities of the older and younger generations and their conflicts in the related organizations. The block A attempted to follow the previous course, while the block B oriented themselves to the Revisionist political line, promising qualitative new activity.

The Religious Zionist trend, with the “Mizrahi” party foremost, was well supported by broadminded rabbis, but did not become very influential in practice in Lithuania. Maintaining the ideas of the Hebraist movement and representing a part of Jewish community, which was brought up and educated in the traditional religious Jewish environment, they did not digress far from Orthodox “Agudes Yisroel” political thought.

Already in the first Zionist congresses the Lithuanian rabbis were torn by secularism and orthodoxy, traditionalism and modernity in their position. In the first years of political Zionism, religious Zionists began to organize the separate fraction “Mizrahi,” attempting to keep the new nationalist ideas close to progressive religious policy. Prewar Religious Zionist leaders, eminent rabbis of numerous communities, continued their activity in independent Lithuania. They organized separate circles of the same name into one Lithuanian “Mizrahi” union. In the first Religious Zionist fraction’s declaration in 1920 their programmatic similarities with the General Zionists were stressed, and only religious matters were left to their own prerogative. They envisaged a theocratic regime in the future Jewish spiritual center and in cultural and educational activity. It is important to note that the new authority which “Mizrahi” members assumed in the middle of 1930s, when changes began in the right wing of the Zionist camp against the monopolistic domination of leftist representatives in the leadership of the World Zionist organization.

Religious issues were very strong in the ideology of “Mizrahi.” Consequently, this was ably used by the Religious Orthodox party looking for partners to support their own political interests. “Mizrahi” participation in the politics of the Lithuanian Zionists was minimal. Although members of the organization supported the idea of a secular democratic Kehilah, they were represented by just a few persons in the Kehilah’s councils. However, the Religious Zionists worked for specific Zionist causes, collecting donations for funds or electing candidates to the Zionist congresses.

The skeptical attitude to Socialist Zionism as an utopian movement eventually changed. The ideals of socialism, declaring economic and social liberation, and the ideals of Zionism, proclaiming national liberation, were not mutually contradictory for the left wing of Zionism: each was a goal in itself and, simultaneously, the means to reach this goal. Similarly, Socialist Zionism offered a way for the supporters of social revolution to seek their ideals while retaining their own national identity. The best realization of both ideals would be the life of the Jewish nation, organized on a socialist basis, in the “Promised Land.”

The movement had a strong position in interwar Lithuania as well, although there the percentage of Jewish workers to whom Socialist ideas could be addressed directly was less than that of Jewish farmers (about 7%). Nevertheless, the Socialist Zionists’ ideology of concern for the welfare of workers, economic and social equality, and the guarantee of political rights to all citizens were attractive not just for the Jewish proletariat, but also for the merchant retailers, employees, and middle class in the free professions. The Socialist Zionist party hardly could be the representative of the proletarian will, but, according to the program, could prepare the working class with strong socialist ideas in the Diaspora for the sake of the future Jewish state.

The first supporter of Socialist Zionism in Independent Lithuania became the “Tseire Tsiyon” youth organization and the nucleus of “Russian Zionist” leaders who returned to Lithuania at the beginning of the 1920s. After some years of work the Lithuanian branch of the World Socialist Zionist organization had split into Zionist Socialists, who turned to the left in accord with International Socialism, and the right wing Zionist Socialists “Tseire Tsiyon Hitahdut.”

In general, ideological differences between these two groups were not apparent in Lithuania, except that in practice they presented separate lists of candidates to every municipal election or to Zionist congresses. In addition, it should be noted that the split left a niche for cooperation with the underground “Poale Tsiyon” organization in Lithuania. This gave reason for the Lithuanian authorities to suspect the whole Socialist Zionist faction and, after the military coup in 1926, to close down a number of its organizations in the provinces.

In the first years of the 1930s both organizations united into one Socialist Zionist union. With this move the Socialist Zionists consolidated their position in the Jewish community. And, as the statistics on the numbers of delegates to Zionist congresses show, they were the most influential Zionist faction in Lithuania.

The Revisionist Zionists propagated mass immigration to Palestine, both legal and illegal, on both sides of the Jordan River, and formed a strong military and authoritarian cult. Branches of the Revisionist organizations already appeared in Lithuania at the end of the 1920s, but real power was achieved in the mid-1930s with the acceleration of events in the western countries and stagnation in the activity of the World Zionist Organization (which, by the way, was in the hands of the Socialist Zionists). The branches were not numerous, but they were very well organized, disciplined, and active. They were not engaged in politics and ignored the activities of the local Jewish communities. Rather, they offered non-traditional ways of striving for the same Zionist ideals. They were supported entirely by the young Jewish generation, which was born and raised in the national spirit in Independent Lithuania.

The Revisionist party in Lithuania opposed the authority of the World Zionist Organization and its policies toward the immigration quotas for Palestine, and it submitted several memoranda in this regard to the Lithuanian president and government. Since the Zionist Revisionists in Lithuania were an integral part of the World Revisionist movement, after a new Zionist Revisionist Union was established (in 1934), they ceased participating in the elections to the World Zionist Congress. The so-called “Grosmanists” or “Yidnshtot party,” wishing to attract the previous electorate of the Revisionists, declared that the pure ideas of Theodor Herzl and revisionism would be continued. The disorientation of other Zionist factions gave them the chance to become an influential party, and they started to organize a general block with some elements from “Mizrahi” and General Zionists block “B.”

The general points – territory, language and the creation of the missing base in the nation’s social pyramid, on which the ideology of Zionism was based – were proclaimed by all the different wings of the Zionist organization in their own party light. They chose different accents which addressed different social electorates and supporters.

The Zionist organization made every effort to institute Jewish Autonomy in Lithuania. At the same time, work was done to create the stable background for this, i.e. to organize the secular Kehilahs as local representatives. The first regulations for equal, general and proportional elections to the Jewish community councils were issued on June 20, 1919. Despite the active agitation campaign, according to the sources, the Zionists won one third of the places, on an average, in the first elections to the councils. The success of the Zionists in the new elections in 1921 and 1923 was even less, when more lists presented their candidates to the elections. Lithuanian Zionists, following one of their principles “work in the present,” attempted to represent their interests at the towns’ municipality. But it is difficult to say what the real influence of the Zionists was, because of the competition with other lists; all elected Jewish candidates usually formed Jewish fractions at the municipal.

Zionists were very active in state politics and Parliamentary elections as well. There they were forced to cooperate with the other Jewish parties or to form a coalition with other national minorities for better representation of the interests of the Jewish minority in Lithuania. The Zionists worked for a legal settlement of the questions of Jewish schools, language and holidays. It might seem that in declaring their loyalty to the Basel program, to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine, Lithuanian Zionists were simply wasting time and energy by concentrating on the creation of the new Kehilahs based on the secular principles, fighting for national autonomy and involving themselves in the internal politics of the Lithuanian state. However, the ultimate goal of the Zionist movement was understood as a task of not just a few years. The Zionist organization viewed this path as a way of defending the interests of the Jewish national minority and, at the same time, reconfiguring the influence on the Jewish street. Self-rule was useful for nationalists to create a kind of “National Ghetto,” where the possibility of assimilation and acculturization would be less. However, as we know, the Lithuanian Minister for Jewish affairs “disappeared” from the Cabinet in 1924, and regulations for the implementation of the new Law on the Jewish National Communities were adopted in 1925.

Interwar Lithuania never became a place where the Zionist ideas were inspired. However, since the Zionist organization in Lithuania was part of the World Zionist organization and a member of the World Zionist congresses, sharing a common ideology and political line, it attempted to realize the ideals of the movement in actual practice. The effort to achieve the ultimate aims of the Zionist movement was understood as a longer term goal.

One of the cornerstones of Zionist ideology was the revival of the Hebrew language in Jewish daily life. The reformation of the Jewish school system and educational curriculum was already discussed at the first Zionist congresses. The founding of educational institutions of all kinds was foreseen in the statutes of the Lithuanian Zionist organizations as the means to produce a generation with a new mode of thinking. The first secular schools with Hebrew as the language of instruction were established through the Zionist initiative in Vilna during the First World War; but the real fight for new schools began after the war, something that caused open confrontation among separate Jewish political groups. In 1920, the educational department “Tarbut” (Culture) was established by the Zionist organization in Lithuania. Its goal was to develop a network of schools from one end of the country to the other, to put the new educational system into practice, and to secure the financial resources for it. The Zionists had foreseen the possibility of controlling the entire Jewish educational system in the future through “Tarbut,” but by the middle of the 1920s “Tarbut” had grown rapidly and become an independent organization with a separate network of schools.

At the beginning of the 1930s one could get an education in the “Tarbut” network from kindergarten through the Teachers Seminary. The goal was to provide students with a general humanistic education but with the emphasis on Hebrew culture and Zionist thought. 75% of all Jewish schoolchildren were registered at “Tarbut” schools in 1928, and this number continued to grow. It happened that, in accordance with the narrow interests of the Social Zionist party “Tseirei Tsiyon,” party branches established and ran their own schools and tried to fund them themselves. This caused them big financial problems. Such schools existed for various periods in Birzh, Shaki Nayshtot, Oniskst, Ponevezh and other places.

The general view was that it was insufficient to raise highly educated and intellectual individuals, but rather it was also necessary to foster healthy and strong young people, who could renew the entire nation. The Jewish sports union “Makabi” was first established in Lithuania in 1920. In its statutes the union declared itself non-political and unaffiliated of any party. Nevertheless, the sports union maintained very close relations with the Zionist organization through its leaders and activities. In particular, “Makabi” cultural activities were attended by Zionists throughout the interwar period. Through the activities of “Makabi,” the Zionist Organization found ways to shape national mentality through the particular symbols and emotions of sport.

At first, an effort was made to fight the “physical cult” stereotype among the elder Jewish generation. Secondly, opportunities were offered to develop Hebrew language skills at “Makabi” branches in even the smallest shtetls. The Jewish sports union even had its own newspaper for a while, and later it appeared as a supplement of the most popular Zionist newspaper, “Di Yidishe Shtime.” The sport matches, the marching of athletes in jackets and slacks, and the singing of the national hymn “Hatikvah” became a celebration of the whole shtetl’s Jewish community, regardless of differences in outlook. Different Zionist factions made attempts to have separate Jewish sport organizations, for instance, “Hakoah,” “Hapoel,” and “Makabi Hatsair,” but they were not so popular and their activities lasted for only a few years.

The association working on behalf of Keren Kayemet leYisroel (Jewish National Fund) and Keren Hayesod (Foundation Fund) was established in 1921 in Kaunas. Its aim was to coordinate the work of the provincial branches, while working to achieve the common aim of building the Jewish National Home in Palestine. The money for the Funds was received from the particular undertakings organized on special occasions by the association’s central office. It was popular to organize public plays in Hebrew, dance evenings, lectures, and the like. All of these were important events in the cultural life of the shtetl and provided additional income for the funds. To ensure regular incomes and effective ways to collect money, the idea of the “blue boxes” was invented. Every Jewish family was invited to have its own box at home, and every member of the household was encouraged to place in it some part of their daily, weekly, or monthly income. The schoolchildren were involved in these undertakings as well.

Every Zionist branch had one or several youth organizations, which, like the branch itself, was tightly linked with the parent organization and showed similarities in organization and ideology. This was a way to increase support for the organization, and at the same time it made it possible to strengthen its political positions among the young generation and to mould their outlook and national consciousness. The priorities were varied, depending on the parent group of the youth organization. In all kinds of activities of “Mizrahi Hatsair” the cult of Torah was emphasized, while military training, maneuvers, and marksmanship were stressed in the revisionist youth organizations, or outdoor physical work for members of the Socialist Zionist group “Gordoniyah.”

Uniforms, buttons with national symbols, and the like played a significant role in the life of Zionist youth. Every organization, union, or association sought to have its own flag and blazon. National attributes were an important means for manipulating the emotions of young people. On the other hand, membership in a particular youth organization allowed one to feel at home among one’s peers and was a form of self-expression.

The specific sphere of activity that was common to all varieties of Zionism was the support of the “Hehalutz” (“Pioneer”) movement. The particularity of the “Hechalutz” organizations was based on preparing youth for Aliya and a new life in Palestine, training youth spiritually, ideologically, physically, and professionally (for work in agriculture). The organizations established numerous Kibbutzim throughout Lithuania in order to achieve this aim. In the 1930s Kibbutzim were run by all Zionist branches. “Hehalutz” was imagined as a beacon and hope for a better life in the Jewish communities. On the other hand, many Halutzim (pioneer youth) were full of idealism and loyal to Zionist ideals, and wanted to be revolutionaries who would change the life of the whole Jewish nation. Their youthful enthusiasm, energy, and desire to fulfill this goal (for which their parents lacked sufficient resolution) called out for action. Despite the news from Palestine about the poor political and economic situation there, large numbers of Halutzim were attracted by the communal spirit of “Hehalutz” summer camps, and imagined life in Palestine not as hard, endless work, but as a camp for work and recreation with songs and dances, i.e., just what they had in the Diaspora.

The last step of preparation for emigration, which took from a few months to two years of living in a local kibbutz before leaving for Palestine, was the “Hakhsharah” program. After 1925, when the British Mandatory Government limited the number of Certificates required to enter Palestine, Zionist organizations started to compete among themselves for larger numbers of them, proving that their candidates were the best prepared to go to Eretz Israel. Halutzim worked not for money, but to acquire the experience that would guarantee them a Certificate.

The favorable view of the Lithuanian government toward the “Hehalutz” movement changed in the mid-1930s, when they suspected that it was not preparing emigrants, but rather propagating socialism and serving as a cover for communists. Thereafter the activities of many of the organization’s cooperatives and farms could be continued only as private business.

The Zionist organization and Jewish Agency/Palestinian Department, as acting consuls in the Diaspora, took responsibility for all matters of emigration to Palestine, starting from ideological propaganda to information on practical details to the calculation of travel costs and the buying of tickets. On the other hand, not everyone could emigrate through the Zionist organization. It had foreseen the prior groups to whom financial support and immigration certificates were given. Palestine was, after South Africa, the second most “attractive” country for emigration. The numbers of emigrants grew from year to year and most were from 20 to 40 years old. It might seem that they were all Halutzim and pro-Zionist in outlook, but a more careful analysis of the general context, the political and economic situation in Lithuania in the 1930s, the “new winds” from the West, and restricted emigration to other countries provide a corrective to this hypothesis.

There were possible other ways of immigration to Palestine. Tourist excursions, business trips, and even the Jewish World Games in Tel Aviv in 1932 and 1935 were used to turn a temporary stay in Eretz Israel into a permanent one. The relationship between confidence in Zionist ideas and quite understandable pragmatism is hardly tangible in these cases.

To be an actual member of the Zionist organization, it was enough to buy one shekel per year. This gave one the right to elect candidates to the Zionist congress every second year until 1935, when the mandates were shared among the factions in Lithuania by common agreement. The number of shekels sold by every faction of the Lithuanian Zionist Organization grew each year. Every third Jew in interwar Lithuania bought at least one shekel in the mid-1930s, but it could hardly be that all of them were members of the Zionist organization. There were 17 delegates from Lithuania to the 19th World Zionist Congress in Lucerne in 1935. Ten of them were representatives of Socialist Zionism.

The Lithuanian government received several memoranda from the Lithuanian Zionist Organization, in which the obligation of Lithuania, being a Member State of the League of Nations, to secure the Palestinian Mandate rights was stressed. Lithuanian diplomats took a more active position on this matter too late, i.e. after the Second World War broke out and Jewish refugees from Poland greatly enlarged the Jewish population of Lithuania.

Jewish parties consisted entirely of Jewish members and Lithuanian parties consisted entirely of ethnic Lithuanians without any real contacts between the single parties. In some spheres, practical work within the ideological framework of Socialist Zionism and Lithuanian Social Democracy was fruitful in interwar Lithuania. The relations between them were pragmatic and produced positive results for both political parties in the areas of professional unions, health insurance, and the like.

Traditionally, the Jewish Folkist-Yiddishist movement and its organizations were perceived as opponents of the Zionist organization. Many speeches were given that stressed the intransigent elements of both ideologies. The main accents lay on their positions vis-ą-vis the Autonomy question, language, and the culture related to it. Actual practice proved that these arguments lacked a strong underpinning. The Zionists were the main force behind realizing Jewish Autonomy in interwar Lithuania, and the largest part of the Zionist press, correspondence, and circulars to the branches was written in Yiddish.

Another political opponent of the Zionist camp in Lithuania was Orthodoxy, with “Agudes Yisroel” in the forefront. It could hardly have been different, keeping in mind that the Zionists strove for the power that for ages had belonged to the religious leadership of the Jewish community. The evident disagreements between these two groups awakened when the statutes regulating the secular democratic Kehilah appeared and nullified the possibility of running separate religious communities in any one shtetl. Nevertheless, we have noted that both the Orthodox and the Jewish Nationalists were not as radically anti-Zionist as they were in other East European countries.

1940 was the critical year for the independent Lithuanian state. After the ultimatum by the Soviet Union was accepted by the Lithuanian government on 15 June 1940, the new ruling regime took power in Lithuania. Jews like all others had to deal with the political, social, economic and ideological consequences changing the previous system into the Soviet one. In many spheres of life Jews suffered from the new regime in Lithuania, but the Zionists appeared to fare the worst. The Zionist organization in Lithuania was declared a counter-revolutionary, reactionary organization, harmful for the state. In Soviet propaganda Zionists were “bourgeois nationalists” and toadies of ex-president A. Smetona. All political, professional, cultural, sport, educational and social organizations of the Zionist movement were closed. The teaching of Hebrew and the Zionist press were forbidden. In additional, the Zionist leaders were repressed, sent to the prison or/and exiled.

The political rhetoric of Zionism aimed to influence people’s emotions. The ideological propaganda was focused on the image of Palestine as the historical Jewish homeland and even a paradise (the “land of milk and honey”), on the role of the individual in history, and the future of the Jewish nation. The demise of the Jewish National Autonomy movement put an end to active Zionist politics. The Zionists had to strengthen other possible spheres for the spreading of their ideology. More intensive support of economic, social, cultural, and educational associations became their main work, which had to ensure, at least, that they would maintain their already achieved positions. The Zionist organization spanned the widest social spectrum, since it offered different ways and means to reach the common aim of the individual factions. A member’s outlook could range from the far right to somewhat left, but all were unified by the ideology of nationalism. The difficult economic situation and the rise of Lithuanian Nationalism disquieted the country and caused a crisis in the value system of the young Jewish generation. This generation, which was raised in a National spirit, felt itself to be a lost generation and saw no positive future prospects in Lithuania. This also served to make Zionist organizations more numerous in Lithuania.

The success of the Zionist organization in Lithuania depended on subjective factors as well. Through their active attempts to cover all spheres of Jewish life and to give answers to all questions posed over time and by the changing geopolitical situation, the Zionists managed to promote the idea that their vision of the future should be the fate of all Jews. The Zionists succeeded in convincing the others that being Jewish meant to be a member of a single, normal nation, which has ideals, as well as concrete aims and interests. The program offered by the World Zionist Organization led to the realization of the vision, but the realization of the program had to become the concern of every Jew.

[ Sionistinis sąjūdis Lietuvoje ]