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Litvak

subject · http://data.judaicalink.org/data/ep/2410224

(pl., Litvakes), Yiddish term for a Jew of historical, or “greater,” Lithuania. The Litvaks’ territory of origin is significantly larger than the borders of both the independent Lithuanian Republic of the interwar period (1918–1940)—which did not include the center of Litvak culture, Vilna (Vilnius)—and the contemporary state of Lithuania. From a Jewish cultural and historical perspective, Lite (Yiddish for Lithuania; Heb., Lita) includes large swaths of northeastern Poland (notably the Białystok and Suwałki regions), northern and western Belarus (notably the Grodno [Hrodna], Minsk, Slutsk, Pinsk, Brisk [Brest Litovsk], Shklov, Mogilev [Mohilev], Gomel [Homel’], and Vitebsk [Vitsyebsk] regions), southern Latvia (notably the Dvinsk [Daugavpils] region), and northeastern Prussia (notably the region of the Baltic port city Memel [Klaipėda]). This expansive definition of Lithuania in Jewish historiography and culture corresponds roughly to the large territory under the jurisdiction of the Lithuanian Jewish Council (Va‘ad Medinot Lita), which governed Lithuanian Jewish communal affairs from 1623 to 1764.

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