Trudy Gold
Jewish History in Latvia and Estonia, Part 1
Summary
Trudy Gold discusses the history of the Jewish people in Latvia and Estonia in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Trudy Gold
Trudy Gold was the CEO of the London Jewish Cultural Centre and a founding member of the British delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Throughout her career she taught modern Jewish history at schools, universities, and to adult groups and ran seminars on Holocaust education in the UK, Eastern Europe, and China. She also led Jewish educational tours all over the world. Trudy was the educational director of the student resources “Understanding the Holocaust” and “Holocaust Explained” and the author of The Timechart History of Jewish Civilization.
es, nothing is new under the sun, unfortunately. And ironically, you see, Look, Jews are mobile people, not allowed to be part of Christian guilds, having to slip into the niches of various countries and economies in order to survive. And then of course you have the European Enlightenment of the 18th, 19th century, where Jews believe they can become part of it in the West, certainly. And because of their own strange history, you do have a success story. But the tragedy was the scapegoating, that when society fractures, as it obviously did in places like Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, particularly in Germany where nationalism is newly bought, plus of course the horror of the first World War, the point was you’re dealing with what Robert Wistrich called “The Longest Hatred”. Anti-Judaism has transmitted into anti-Semitism. The tragedy of the Jew, the Jews saw themselves as at the forefront of so many of these countries, wanting so hard to be part of it. And yet in the end, the upswing in nationalism meant that they couldn’t be. And I think the other point to remember is also the Jew badge. The Jew badge was invented by the Church. There is no organisation more zealous for Christianity than the Catholic Church. And it was only in the ‘60s that the Church forgave the Jews for the crime of Deicide for all generations. And even then, they still blame the Jews of Jesus’ day. So it is a terrible issue. How you deal with it is another story. The Jew badge changes from country to country.
It goes all the way back to Alexander Nevsky. It goes back to the Battle on the Ice. It goes back to Ivan the Terrible, this traditional enmity. Look where Prussia is, Prosky, East Prussia, it borders with Rus’, think about it, the Baltic states. There was only one Jewish inn in the 1700s that Jews had to stay in.
Ah that’s, remember Vilnius is Lithuania. And after the first World War, it was part of Poland. I’ve already done a couple of sessions on Vilnius. Vilnius was different. The Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, which lasted really from the 1300s right up to its dismemberment beginning in 1795, finishing in 1815, Vilnius was one of the most important centres under the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was the home of the Vilna Gaon, it was also in the 19th century, very, very important in Jewish affairs. It was at the centre of the boom. But I spent a whole session on Vilnius, and I think once the website is up, you’ll be able to have a copy of that lecture.