Baltic Rebirth and the Zionist Staging Ground for a Jewish State
by Norman Berdichevsky (May 2010)
Like the Jews, the Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians maintained a distinct and isolated cultural heritage stemming from pre-Christian times, suffered the persecution of militant Crusaders (the Teutonic Knights considered it a holy task to Christianize or exterminate them from the 12th to the 14th centuries); were victims of the intolerant designs of the Russian and German empires to assimilate "peculiar" minorities; enjoyed a late flowering national renaissance based first and foremost upon the ancestral languages, sustained a far flung Diaspora (for the Balts in Scandinavia, Canada, Australia and the United States); and strove to bring about reborn national states committed to democratic ideals but surrounded by aggressive and hostile neighbors.
These parallel developments ought to have made the Jews and Baltic peoples firm allies in the face of their common foes during the late 19th and early 20th centuries—the Germans, Russians, and Poles. For a brief period this was indeed the case. In the early 1920s, the democratic Baltic states guaranteed full cultural autonomy to their respective Jewish minorities. The shared history of "Litvak Jews" (those resident in the areas ruled by Lithuania at its height of power and prestige in the 17th century) and the Baltic peoples was, however, tragically flawed by the Holocaust and the brutal subjugation and annexation of all three Baltic states by the Soviet Union. It is necessary to put these events in historical perspective in order to understand how and why Baltic-Jewish coexistence foundered. The tragic similarities, the shared fate of being cultural isolates and bearers of an ancient pre-Christian heritage which survived into the modem world, deserves recognition.
The Lithuanian language is considered an archaic branch of the Indo-European family, and the one which has changed least in its development over the last three thousand years. It is a telling similarity that the rebirths of the Hebrew and Baltic languages are striking examples of an ancient cultural heritage that was restored and preceded the national sentiment for an independent homeland.
Under the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania, Jews were invited to settle in the 16th century and enjoyed a tolerance of ecumenical spirit which stood out like an island amidst the vast ocean of religious intolerance provoked by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. This was largely due to the Lithuanian element that had only shortly before, abandoned its long devotion to the old Pagan Baltic religions and accepted Catholicism as an expedient to avoid further bloodshed and rivalry with the rest of Europe. The Lithuanians, as the last people to be Christianized in Europe, were much less susceptible to the accumulated prejudices of the established churches. Jews, Greek Orthodox and Lutheran subjects, all enjoyed the new order of tolerance which laid the foundation for the growth of the largest Jewish community in the world.
Lithuania became a center of Jewish Talmudic scholarship and a bulwark of resistance to the emotional populist appeal of Hassidism. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, and many others who were active in the renaissance of the Hebrew language, were “Litvaks.” Rationalist currents of thought among Lithuanian Jewry also welcomed the Haskalah (enlightenment) movement that sought secular knowledge and espoused democratic ideals while trying to remain loyal to Jewish traditions and making them more attuned to the modem world.
Under Czarist domination, Lithuanian and Jewish nationalists worked together in a united front in the Duma. Yet this political cooperation never attempted to bridge the enormous economic and social gap between the two peoples. The Yiddish speaking Jewish masses formed a majority in Vilnius, "The Jerusalem of Lithuania," and elsewhere were concentrated in the shtetls —market towns where they acted as middlemen for the produce of Lithuanian and Latvian peasants. German and Polish noblemen dominated large landed estates and the free professions in the cities while a Russian elite of administrators filled the highest political posts.
Both Jews and Balts, attempting to penetrate the urban middle class, adopted Russian and German to further their careers and assimilate with the ruling classes. Although Zionism and Hebrew culture became widely popular, the overwhelming majority of Litvak Jews were unable to sympathize with the growing movement for Lithuanian and Latvian independence and the cultural reawakening of the Baltic peoples. Prosperous urban Jewish merchants and professionals invariably chose a Russian education for their children (German was preferred in East Prussia). As little as three percent of Jewish elementary school students in inter-war Latvia studied in Latvian-language schools as compared to 12 percent in German schools, over 50 percent in Russian ones, and about 33 percent in the Yiddish or Hebrew schools. [Lucy Dawidowicz, "The War Against the Jews"; Hebrew edition, p. 422].
This was naturally resented by the native Baltic peoples who had for so long considered the Germans, Russians and Poles the sources of their oppression. Unfortunately, this Jewish wish to be part of "prestigious" cultures was an ironic denial of the basis for Zionism itself that urged Jews to return to their own heritage. Even today, many Russian, American, English and French Jews find it regrettable to contemplate loss of these prestigious languages that have become cosmopolitan and adopt a minor provincial language such as Hebrew. It was only a handful of farsighted Zionists, most notably Zev Jabotinsky (who was himself an accomplished linguist and outstanding literary figure in multiple languages), who argued in favor of the necessity to return to Hebrew, even at great effort.
Jabotinsky praised the national rebirth of the Latvian people during a visit to Riga and described Latvia as "an oasis" among the new independent states following World War I. In the summer of 1932, Jabotinsky spoke in fluent Flemish before an enthralled audience in Antwerp on 'The Flemish Language and Jewish Nationalism.' In so doing, he openly sided with Flemish attempts to achieve equality with the dominant French speaking Walloon society in Belgium. He saw the similarity of the national movements of small nations to Zionism and the danger of Jewish ignorance of them. He specifically singled out the Baltic States in the Hebrew newspaper Doar HaYom in 1930:
The world does not love small states. From time to time, when one of the great European newspapers mentions one of the small states, and especially those created after the war,... the writer's face gets all wrinkled and he curses why the world has become "Balkanized". Or else he puts on a serious scientific face and proves that the small states "are not able to exist", because previously when they were districts in one of the large states, they enjoyed a "hinterland" which they now lack.
I guess I have an opposite nature. Indeed, I love the small states. If I had been the creator of the world I would have long ago decreed that all of the great kingdoms be divided up into tiny independent states ... I love that kind of small town that has the audacity to think of itself as the center of the world, as the city of my birth Odessa, for example... My faith in small states has to do with this philosophy: the more capitals, the more culture. Indeed I remember Kovno, Riga and Reval [Tallin] from before the war. Their inhabitants complained about the boredom, exactly as they do today (to always be in Paris is boring like anything persistent); but a tourist who looks from the side sees the difference. Previously there was nothing to examine in those cities or ask about: today each one of them is a laboratory of creative experiments: They are creating one of the greatest of God's miracles—the nations. [Doar Ha-Hom. 11 October 1930]
An Appeal for Jewish and Small Nations' Rights
Although Jewish life in the shtetl had evolved symbiotically with the Baltic peasants and small farmers in the countryside, there was only a very limited contact among intellectuals and politicians among the two peoples who saw an advantage to cooperate against Czarist oppression. Very few Jews had Jabotinsky's insight. The following quote from an anthology of Lithuanian literature in Hebrew translation summarizes Jewish cultural achievement, piety and attachment to a common homeland that was, however,bereft of appreciation and understanding of the rebirth of Baltic culture.
There is a small nation in the North of the world which has distinguished itself by hospitality and an honest human relationship with the remote People of the Diaspora during centuries—the Lithuanian Nation. Its land has served us for generations as a storage place for the Torah, for wisdom and for the spirit of Israel. Here we have lived for hundreds of years, here we have created an original Hebrew culture, here our essence struck deep roots in the soil and here we adopted a second Mother Jerusalem — "Yerushalayim de'Lita" [Vilnius]. Here the study of the Torah flourished, here Yeshivot prospered and bloomed, here lived 'The Gaon" and our great rabbis — the words of the Nation; here the cradle of our new literature stood, here lived our writers — the renewers of our tongue and those who breathed new life in us; here sang the Levinsohns, the father and the son, here Mapu dreamed, here Gordon created and Lillienblum fought; here arose the leaders of a renewed nation and here at the same time the living Hebrew language found a home and a network of schools brought forth a healthy living youth whose example one can only find in the Land of Israel. But behold, in spite of this the literature of this people [Lithuanian] is locked for us with seven seals and entirely unknown to the Hebrew People.["Antologia shel HaSifrut HaLitait", Kaunas, 1932, edited by Yitzhak Kissin]
Independence without their historic capital of Vilnius was unthinkable for Lithuanian nationalists. Their claim was on grounds of prescription — an "immemorial possession" in spite of the city's Jewish majority. Polish nationalists, however, viewed the retention of Vilnius and Lvov (in the Western Ukraine) with their large Polish populations and universities as essential to the integrity of their state with links to the past.
Lithuania's stated intentions to protect minority rights and less discriminatory attitude towards its Jewish population were used as arguments to sway public opinion abroad and especially influence the League of Nations. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and end of World War I, all three Baltic States were caught in the middle of a battleground between retreating German troops and a major conflict between Poland and Russia.
Although Vilnius was originally to be included in an independent Lithuanian state, Polish troops, defying the terms that had been reached in negotiations, occupied the city after a coup in order to "protect" the Poles. The Polish government claimed that the local Polish population had risen in rebellion against inclusion in the new Lithuanian state. A "plebiscite" carried out by Polish authorities gave a large majority to annexation by Poland. Both Lithuanians and Lithuanian Jews boycotted the plebiscite.
Lithuania; Zionist Staging ground for a Jewish State
The need of the Baltic states to mobilize international Jewish support for their independence and territorial claims (especially Lithuania's claim to Vilnius) resulted in liberal constitutions guaranteeing minority rights and cultural autonomy. A Lithuanian delegation to the Paris Versailles Peace Conference pledged that the Jews would enjoy full national-cultural autonomy. The promise was kept and in 1920 the Jewish community was recognized as a legal institution with the right to legislate binding ordinances. All Jews were subject to the decisions of Va'ad HaAretz (Jewish National Council). The Zionist Minister of Jewish affairs in the government, Soloveichik, often delivered speeches praising Jewish autonomy and declaring that "We are rehearsing here towards a Jewish state."
On a visit to Kaunas in honor of the local newspaper Die Yiddishe Shtimme, Chaim Bialik also added his appreciation of the rights accorded the Jewish minority and stated that "If Vilna is known as the Yerushalayim deLita [Jerusalem of Lithuania], then all of Lithuania should be known as the Eretz-Yisrael deGaluta".[The Land of Israel of in Exile]. In no other part of the Diaspora was there such a vibrant fullblown cultural life in both Yiddish and Hebrew.
Nationalists in Lithuania and Latvia, where a similar autonomy was established, viewed such minority rights as divisive. Their motives, however, were not based primarily on anti-Semitism alone but the view that the Baltic peoples should be given preferential treatment in raising their economic and social status, a process that inevitably would have to come about at the cost of the minorities.
Although the Jews were initially viewed in a much more favorable light than the minorities backed by hostile large states (Germans, Russians, and Poles), Jewish economic preeminence, especially in trade, aggravated tensions. In 1923, there were 14,000 shops in Lithuania owned by Jews, and 2,000 by non-Jews; by 1936, the respective figures were 10,000 and 12,000.["HaMedinot HaBaltiot" by Binyamin Eliav in HaTfutza: Mizrach Europa edited by Yaakov Tzur, Keter Publishers, Jerusalem, 1967, p. 106]. With the growth of virulent anti-Semitism in Germany and Poland, anti-Semitic movements also won considerable adherents in Latvia and Lithuania but they were tempered by fear of Nazi Germany using the economically powerful German minority as a fifth column.
The Lithuanian Ministry of Jewish Affairs was abolished in 1924. The ostensible reason given for this decision was internal bickering between Yiddishists and Hebraists for control of the Jewish educational sector, but many observers held that this was the beginning of Lithuanian ultra-nationalist sentiments coming to the fore. Although Lithuania eventually fell under an authoritarian regime (as did Latvia and Estonia), there was no mob violence against Jews or their property. Lithuania's toughening attitude towards aggressive pro-Nazi elements among the Germans in Klaipeda (Memel) resulted in the trial and conviction of Nazi activists for treason, a step which infuriated German public opinion and instinctively evoked Jewish support around the world.
Jabotinsky and the Diaspora Then and the Political Picture among Jews Today
We are three generations removed from Zev Jabotinsky's proud declaration of a reborn Hebrew state sharing in the great gift of "the nations", one that still strikes many Diaspora Jews as anachronistic in spite of the Holocaust and the spectre of nationalist turmoil and ethnic divisiveness almost everywhere. For some Jews in positions of wealth, power and comfort who are either entirely secular in outlook or affiliated with the Reform Movement in the United States and Western Europe and far removed from any sense of a Jewish ethnic identity, Israel has become an embarrassment, one that threatens their self-image as profoundly liberal and understanding of others' grievances. For them, the Israelis, as fellow Jews, living amidst the cauldron of a strident, militant, exclusivist Islam and the legacy of repeated Arab nation-state failures, should shoulder the burden and responsibility of giving up much of their sovereignty for the delusion and illusion of rescuing the 'Palestinians' and thus, helping to ensure what they believe will be a "peaceful world order."
Their parents and grandparents most likely rejoiced at the rebirth of Israel in 1948 and regarded it mystically as partial compensation for the Holocaust. Nevertheless, two generations later, they have been psychologically intimidated by the constant anti-Israel line of the media, their fellow-liberals and most of all by the torrent of bloody confrontations picturing enraged Muslim mobs ready for constant mayhem to avenge what they regard as the worst injustice in human history (i.e. the creation of the Jewish State rather than the failure to establish an Arab Palestinian state).
A significant proportion of them cannot escape the narcotic-like trance they have inherited as “progressives” and ultra-critical of capitalism and American society with its underlying Christian values. Consequently, they have developed a reflexive disassociation from the State of Israel and can only look with suspicion and unease on the national pride of Israelis.
For Jabotinsky, Zionism and the nationalism of other small nations was the accumulation of pride and sovereign self-respect, which for the Jews could only be obtained in the face of an immensely hostile Gentile environment. It was a revolutionary call for Jews to shoulder all the obligations of nationhood and take up the sword in self-defense. This meant doing all the dirty work of soldiers, jailers, farmers and street cleaners instead of preaching to Gentiles on how these affairs should be properly managed.
Borrowing from the vision of Italian nationalist leader Mazzini (Jabotinsky had lived and studied in Italy for three years), he proclaimed that each and every nation makes its own contribution to human culture within the sovereign body of nationhood in order to fulfil its task and mission. This is still foreign, and appears even "crude" to those Jews whose cosmopolitan vision of their identity, paradoxically resembles that of the ultra-Orthodox as a "divine holy tribe of priests" and who believe they have a universal mission to bring "God's word" (in their own liberal-cosmopolitan interpretation) to other nations.
For Jabotinsky, the concept of hadar, an explicitly Hebrew concept that he tried to inculcate into every member of the world-wide Zionist youth movement of Betar, was and remains fundamentally at odds with the century long attraction of many Jewish intellectuals for the illusion of socialism and their false sense of noblesse oblige for the "masses." The essence of hadar is untranslatable. Literally, it means shine or glow, but for Jabotinsky, it implied chivalry in conduct and life-style, a combination, as he defined it, of "spiritual beauty, respect, self-esteem, immaculate grooming, politeness, faithfulness and integrity." Hadar consists of a thousand trifles which collectively form everyday life. Precisely these values have been mocked by self-hating Jews such as Woody Allen, the cultural hero of many American Liberals.
In forming Betar among Riga high school students in 1923, Jabotinsky influenced the everyday lives of hundreds of thousands of Jewish children from the ghettos of Eastern Europe with a spirit of Malchut Yisrael (Jewish nobility) that their people had not known since the dispersion 1,800 years earlier. Like the Baltic and Polish intellectuals he had come to know and emulate, Jabotinsky gave forlorn youth a sense of being a proud part not only of a bright future but of a glorious remote past. He taught that the fate of the Jewish people is linked only with one ism - ZIONISM, undiluted and untainted by any other ism.
Caught Between The Hammer and the Anvil
The Holocaust and Soviet annexation of the Baltic States left behind a deep traumatic residue of pain which obscures the previous centuries-long coexistence and suffering of both peoples. A tiny but vocal and dedicated minority of Jewish communists had from the outset of the Russian Revolution cast their hopes upon the Soviet regime. For them, the old attraction to Russian culture and disdain for the Baltic languages and customs was increased by the added magnetic pull of the center of World Socialism. Jewish autonomy and a thriving Yiddish and Hebrew press were compared unfavorably with the new Soviet Jewish autonomous region of Birobidjan.
The crowning achievements of the Jewish educational systems (the Hebrew secular Tarbut, the Yiddish Socialist Kultur-Liga, and religious Yavneh schools) were denigrated by idealistic comparisons with the new Yiddish proletarian culture being created in the Soviet Union. Lithuanian Jewish communists even adopted the reformed spelling of Yiddish current in the USSR (Emmes spelled with the Hebrew letters ayin- mem -ayin- samech instead of Emet with aleph-mem-tav).
These Jewish communists welcomed the arrival of the Red Army and the annexation of the Baltic States to the USSR in 1940. Until the German invasion of 1941, the new Soviet regime decimated the ranks of the Baltic intelligentsia, thoroughly eliminated private enterprise, destroyed all independent institutions, exiled tens of thousands of civilians suspected of any nationalist or democratic sympathies (including Zionist activists, stamp collectors and Esperantists), and thoroughly wiped out every vestige of Jewish culture including Yiddish schools as well as the Hebrew ones.
Before the outbreak of the war, Jabotinsky had praised the Baltic nationalists and the human capital and sacrifice they invested in restoring national pride and sovereignty and linked the fate of these small European nations with that of the Zionist movement. The Jews of the independent Lithuanian state between the two world wars demonstrated a high level of patriotism and motivation including their readiness for military service. Many fought with distinction in Lithuania's War of Indepedence and against Polish and German irregulars during the border strife that followed. More than 3,000 Jewish war veterans were organized into 33 branches throughout the country.
Even after the annexation of Lithuania and its absorption into the USSR as a constituent republic in June, 1940, the newly formed Lithuanian units of the Red Army comprised many Jewish soldiers, who, although in no way sympathetic to communism, were aware of their historic opportunity to resist Nazi Germany on the battlefield even if it meant fighting under the banner of the hammer and sickle. A massive wave of voluntary enlistment in the Red Army followed the German invasion of the USSR in June, 1941.
At least 15,000 Jews managed to escape the German occupation of Lithuania and find their way into the interior of the USSR where many were mobilized into the the 16th Infantry "Lithuanian Rifle Division" although a very large percentage of them had been active in the Zionist youth movements including the "Rightwing" Revisionists and the Religious Mizrahi organization. Many rose through the ranks to become officers and won numerous decorations including that of "Hero of the Soviet Union". These include General Wolf Vilensky, whose autobiography (translated into Hebrew as "Tahufuchot Goral; Sipur-Hayyim shel Gibor Brit HaMoatzot" - "Vicissitudes of Fate; The Story of a Hero of the Soviet Union"), tells the remarkable tale of the heroic Lithuanian Sixteenth Division of the Red Army comprised of many soldiers who secretly remained proud Zionists and Lithuanian Nationalists.
Born in Kaunas in 1919, the son of a baker, Vilensky was raised in a Zionist household where he received a traditional Jewish upbringing. He studied in the Yavne high school and finished his studies in the Ort school. He worked in a Chalutz farm preparing for aliyah, his Zionist dream. He was drafted into the Lithuanian army in 1939 and when Lithuania became a Soviet republic in June, 1940 he was sent to an officers course in Vilnius. Because of his courage and leadership skills, he quickly rose in the ranks and became the commander of the Third Battalion of the 249th Brigade and then the brigade commander. He was loved by his men and became a legend and achieved the rank of Brigadier General.
Jews accounted for at least 30% of The Lithuanian Division, whose battle record includes liberating 646 settlements, inflicting 30,000 casualties to enemy soldiers and the taking of 12,000 prisoners of war. The Division was still active after the war until it was finally dissolved in 1956, after which many of its Jewish veterans emigrated to Israel. Many Israelis who only had perceptions or memories of Jewish passivity during the war and Holocaust were amazed to hear these veterans recount their experiences in the Red Army; singing Yiddish and Zionist Hebrew songs while marching or sitting around campfires during the bitter winter nights.
Nazi propaganda lost no time in singling out the Jews for revenge when they overran the three Baltic States. Nationalist extremists in the three countries wrent their vengeance on the Jews (most of whom, of course, were not communists and had taken no part in the Soviet regime). This collaboration in helping the Germans commit atrocities on an enormous scale has been condemned by the current leaders of the Baltic republics since regaining independence but many Jewish survivors suspect that it was largely cosmetic “window dressing.” The misdirected revenge of Baltic nationalists against the Jews remains a bitter legacy of events in which both peoples were the victims of totalitarian states.
Following their renewed independence, the leaders of the Baltic States all issued appeals calling upon renewed contacts and friendly cooperation with the Jewish people. The Baltic states all have full diplomatic relations with the State of Israel. They resemble those of the early 1920s who won the sympathy and admiration of Jabotinsky. It is therefore all the more regrettable that there are still those in all three Baltic states who wish to rid themselves of any collective guilt for the ghastly atrocities against the Jews committed by local collaborationists with the S.S. by focussing attention away from the Jewish victims to those Lithuanians murdered and exiled during the Soviet occupation.
The idea of regaining independence for the three Baltic states or even a cultural and literary revival struck many observers as a fantastic notion in spite of much lip service by American foreign policy spokesmen regarding the illegality of their incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1940. The individuality of the three peoples and especially the revelation that the archaic Latvian and Lithuanian languages, the former Baltic pagan religion, Baltic legends and folk customs were all survivors of the ancient Indo-European or Aryan pre-historic culture reinforced the analogy of "turning the clock back thousands of years", just as Zionism had sought to do by reestablishing a Jewish state and reviving the Hebrew language. [Balts and Aryans in Their Indo-European Background by Suniti Kumar Chatterji, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, 1968].
The reemergent Baltic states captured world attention more than any other region within the disintegrating Soviet Union. This was certainly not a factor of their size and population, especially compared to the much larger Ukrainian and Byelorussian Soviet Republics but rather due to their previous strategic role as independent states in Europe between the two world wars. [The Baltic States: The Years of Independence, 1917-1940. Georg von Rauch, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1974]. This interest evokes the sympathy of those who remember the brief interim between the two World Wars when the Jews enjoyed an unprecedented cultural autonomy in all three independent Baltic Republics. [Jewish National Autonomy in Lithuania (1918-1925)" by Samuel Gringauz, Jewish Social Studies, July 1952].
The saga of how Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians managed to maintain their ancient and isolated cultural heritage is remarkable and their rebirth amidst the disintegration of the Soviet Union immediately calls to mind the protracted struggle to establish a Jewish homeland after centuries of statelessness. The record of Lithuanian Jewry should be common knowledge and an antidote to those in the Diaspora who are ambivalent, ignorant, unmindful or disparaging of Jewish pride.
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