Lithuanian Jewish Culture ( The Vilnius Yiddidh Institute at Vilnius University)

 The Vilnius Yiddidh Institute at Vilnius University, Central European University Press, 2010, hardcover, illustrated, 240 pages, inscription to first page, otherwise condition: basically as new.

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.

This is a major study of the various cultures of the Litvaks, the Jews of Lithuania; in this context the notion Lithuania comprises all of modern day Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus, and chunks of Poland, Ukraine and Russia. This beautiful folio format, with thirty specially commissioned maps and charts and many photographs and facsimiles, traces the culture of the Litvaks from the prehistory of ancient Israel through to Babylonia and Europe, the first manifestations of Lithuanian Jewish culture. The plot line then diversifies to dedicate equal time to traditional Talmudic and Kabalistic culture, and to the wide range of more modern forms of Litvak culture, including Hebraism, Yiddishism, Zionism, and Diasporism. It discusses the dynamic interaction between the three languages of this civilization: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Yiddish.

                                                                                                                     A LARGE COFFEE TABLE BOOK.