Lithuanian Jewish Culture

Dovid Katz's monumental Lithuanian Jewish Culture is the most comprehensive work ever to appear in English on the cultural, linguistic and spiritual worlds of the Litvaks. The Litvaks are the Jews hailing from the lands of the medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania and its successor modern states - Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, and parts of northern Ukraine and northeastern Poland. This huge folio volume provides an introduction to Jewish history and culture starting with antiquity and leading methodically to the rise of Lithuanian Jewry some seven centuries ago.

Dovid Katz's monumental examination of Lithuanian Jewish Culture is the most comprehensive work ever to appear in English on the cultural, linguistic and spiritual worlds of the Litvaks. This exquisite huge folio volume provides an introduction to Jewish history and culture starting with antiquity and leading up through the rise of Lithuanian Jewry approximately seven centuries ago. It covers traditional rabbinic culture of Ashkenazic Jewry, specifically Lithuanian rabbinic and kabbalistic traditions, the Hasidic-Misnagdic conflict, and the various modernistic 19th and 20th century movements, including Yiddishism, Hebraism, Zionism, Socialism, and Jewish Art. Sections are devoted to the life of the Litvaks in the interwar republics, in emigration centers in America, Israel and around the world, including the post-Holocaust survivors in Eastern Europe. A comprehensive volume, the first book on Lithuanian Jewry which gives equal emphasis on religious and secular Jewish life.

Dovid Katz is Professor of Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture at Vilnius University, Lithuania.