Jewish Lithuania 2012
Vilna, once referred to as Yerushalayim D’lita, served as the cultural, philosophical, spiritual, and intellectual center of pre-war Jewish life in Europe. The Litvak culture that existed in the Baltics came to an abrupt and tragic end in the Shoah. Unlike other experiences in Europe, our Jewish Lithuania program is as focused on the present and future as it is on the past. We purposely invite many faculty whose work engages with Jewish identity, 
Jewish politics, and most importantly, Jewish life. In 2011 we hosted a Yiddish concert, with local Vilnius Litvak, Rafailas Karpis-- a rapidly rising opera star. We work with the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, the Holocaust Museum, the local community, historians, lecturers, and people who are engaged with contemporary Jewish politics and culture in Vilnius, to shed light on a uniquely rich and complicated Jewish place. SLS-Jewish Lithuania is intent, above all, on having a free and unfettered exchange of opinions, providing an open forum of ideas. We also have leading Litvak genealogists on our faculty, helping the participants of Litvak origins to find and explore their roots on the ground.
We bring a large number of local and international presenters to our Jewish Lithuania program. It is truly a unique, groundbreaking forum and cultural/academic program. We are constantly developing, expanding and deepening it.
All things said, Lithuania is a very complicated place for both its Jewish present and past. We also pay witness to the brutalities that took place in Vilnius, both by celebrating the culture of the Litvaks, but also by immersing ourselves within the physical space they once occupied, that same space in which they no longer are. But this is one of those important circumstances of this program, that the absence of something provides for no less of a context than its presence.
SLS-Lithuania program is interesting, meaningful, and profound. It is all about bringing back the memories, and suffusing the place – arguably the most important of all the “Jewish” places in Europe – with the new, vital, independent, inquisitive energy.
For more information, contact Jake Levine.
COURSE:
THE PHOENIX AND THE PILGRIM: Artists in the Aftermath of Genocide
with Quintan Ana Wikswo
Through guided fieldwork and multidisciplinary collaborations with local Lithuanians, students artistically inhabit undocumented and obscured Jewish sites in Vilnius, creating bodies of work that establish an enduring, tenacious, and spirited new generation of Jewish culture in Lithuania.
As pilgrims and phoenixes, we will engage with centuries of intersections and collisions of Litvak and Lithuanian experience, and develop new opportunities for dialogue and convergence in a community torn apart by violence.
Drawing inspiration from the works of visionary avant-garde Jewish artists and writers, the course offers a glimpse into new literary and multidisciplinary forms that have emerged within the wake of human rights catastrophes. Students have the opportunity to present their new work in a culminating event shared with the Vilnius artistic community, and to publish it in a web-based anthology.
2012 Jewish Lithuania Schedule
M: Guided museum tour of the Green House and Tolerance Center from 1-5
T: Lectures and guided city tour
W: Lecture on Litvak History and Literature at the Green House
Evening: Reading and Yiddish Concert with Rafailas Karpis at the Tolerance Center
Th: Trip to Degsne and Valkyninkai(with lunch in Darbuzai) and Rudninkai Partisan Base following
F: Lectures and panels with (TBA)
Sa: Trip to Trakai
Sun: Optional trip to flea Market
M: Trip to Sugihara House and Kaunas Ghetto with Simonas Davidovicius and also to Ziezmariai Wooden Synagogue
T: Lectures and guided city tour
W: Jewish Vilnius City Tour and Ponar
Th: Trip to Milosz’s birthplace in Setenai
F: Trip to Jewish Cemeteries and also Lectures with (TBA)
Sa: Closing Reception
