Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum ( lt, Valstybinis Vilniaus Gaono Žydụ Muziejus; yi, דער ווילנער גאון מלוכהשער יידישער מוז) is a Lithuanian museum dedicated to the historical and cultural heritage of
Lithuanian Jewry.
History
The Vilna Gaon museum was established in 1989 by the
Lithuanian Ministry of Culture. Over the years, its collection has been expanded to include objects from other museums in Lithuania. The museum was renamed in 1997 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the death of the
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...
ic scholar
Vilna Gaon.
The museum has five branches that focus on different aspects of Jewish history and culture:
* The Tolerance Center's collections include works of sacred, modern, and traditional art along with historical materials.
* The Green House is a
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
exhibit
* The Paneriai Memorial is dedicated to the
Paneriai (Ponary) Massacre
* The
Jacques Lipchitz
Jacques Lipchitz (26 May 1973) was a Cubist sculptor. Lipchitz retained highly figurative and legible components in his work leading up to 1915–16, after which naturalist and descriptive elements were muted, dominated by a synthetic style of ...
Memorial Museum in
Druskininkai
Druskininkai (; pl, Druskieniki; be, Друскенiкi; yi, דרוזגעניק, translit=Druzgenik) is a spa town on the Nemunas River in southern Lithuania, close to the borders of Belarus and Poland. The city of Druskininkai has a population ...
exhibits his lithographs
* The former Tarbut Gymnasium displays the
history of Lithuanian Jews in the interwar and
Nazi period.
The museum acquires and systematizes materials, issues publications, conducts research, organizes permanent and temporary exhibitions, and sponsors educational activities.
[
In 2010, the Museum and the Austrian Verein Gedenkdienst joined forces to launch the Lithuanian Holocaust Atlas project. Expanding on previous research on Holocaust murder sites in Lithuania, the project created a]
internet database
and in 2011 published the ''Lithuanian Holocaust Atlas,'' a 318-page volume reference book of 227 mass graves with detailed information on the location, coordinates, perpetrators, victims and their number. Dr. Arūnas Bubnys
Arūnas Bubnys (born November 7, 1961) is a Lithuanian historian and archivist. He started his studies at Vilnius University in 1985. In 1993 he received a Ph.D for the thesis ''Lietuvių antinacinė rezistencija 1941–1944 m.'' ( en, Lithuanian ...
served as the project's historian.[''Lithuanian Holocaust Atlas'', compiled by Milda Jakulytė-Vasil, Vilnius: Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum and the National Land Service under the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania, 2011. 318 pages; illus.; maps ]
See also
*History of the Jews in Lithuania
The history of the Jews in Lithuania spans the period from the 14th century to the present day. There is still a small community in the country, as well as an extensive Lithuanian Jewish diaspora in Israel, the United States and other countrie ...
References
External links
Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum website
{{Authority control
Holocaust museums
Jewish museums
Jewish organizations based in Lithuania
Judaism in Vilnius
Museums in Vilnius
History museums in Lithuania
Museums established in 1989
1989 establishments in Lithuania