Lithuania is a small country; its population is under four million. A lot of people around the globe do not have a slightest idea of where and what Lithuania is. But to the world Jewry it is a well-known place. Lithuania reminds them of the glorious Jewish past and the rich culture, and is in many ways associated with Vilnius - Jerusalem of Lithuania, that a prominent historian Simon Dubnov once called Jerusalem of the entire Diaspora. Every year many Jews from all over the world, and not only nostalgic litvakes, visit the country. Many come here motivated by the national pride, reverence, and love for the unique culture, which had been created in Lithuania. Even visitors from the great Jewish centers often draw spiritual strength from both our great past and the present-day life of country's Jews. The two are inseparable. There is no doubt that the active life of the handful of Lithuania's surviving Jews is to a great extent inspired by the rich legacy or their forefathers. Often repeated, usually with great sorrow, but sometimes unfortunately with triumph, is the notion that Lithuania's Jewry and its culture have been completely destroyed. But that is not so. It is true that nearly all of the Jews who once lived in Lithuania were executed; however, the culture of a nation is more enduring than the people who created it and who lived immersed in it. This culture, or at least its fragments are still alive; alive in the surviving books, in the small streets of Vilnius, in the monuments marking the graves, in the architecture of the buildings, in the traditions, and in the memory of the people. All of it even now upholds yiddishkait and Jewish spirit.
The Jews of Lithuania indeed have something to remember. Vilnius has never been one of Eastern European cities with the largest Jewish population. But it was particularly rich with Jewish wisdom and Jewish spirit. Jews would go to Lod^ or to Odessa to make money, and to Vilnius to absorb spiritual values. Vilnius had more than a hundred prayer houses, including the architecturally splendid Great Synagogue, built in 1573.

Prominent Vilnius researcher Leizer Rahn claims that 250 prayer houses functioned in Vilnius at one time or another. However, not only Vilnius was famous for its traditional culture. Lithuania's yeshivas were well-known throughout the world; hundreds of young men from various countries used to come to study at Volozhin, Telsiai, Slobodke (Kaunas), Panevezhys, Ramaile (Vilnius) and many other yeshivas. Their authority is testified by the fact that some of the yeshivas in Israel, USA, and South Africa even now bear the name of Telsiai, Slobodke, Paneve-zhys, etc. Lithuania, and particularly Vilnius, were famous for its cantors (chazonim); they were invited to the most prominent synagogues in Berlin, Warsaw, Amsterdam, USA and elsewhere, and often became chief cantors. The most talented of them all was Vilner Balabesl (Joel-David Levenstein-Strashunsky), who enchanted the world with his singing. Many countries in the world had more Jews than Lithuania did, but only few of them had that many Talmud experts and eminent rabbis: Abraham ben Jechiel Michel Danzig, whose "Chaje Adam" was for many decades the handbook for yeshiva students; Mordechai Plungian, who translated "Shulchan Aruch" into Yiddish; Chaim of Volozhin, the Vil¬nius Gaon's closest disciple and follower, and founder and head of the
famous Volozhin yeshiva (1803); Israel Lipkin, initiator of the musar movement, and known throughout the world by the name of Salanter; the great Kaunas' rabbi Isaac Elehanan (Spektor), who in the second half of the 19th century raised the town of Kaunas to a world-level center  of Judaism; and the last spiritual leader of Vilnius' Jews, Chaim Ozer Grodzenski, after whom streets in the cities of Israel are named. These are just a few of the world-famous names that should be mentioned here.
The greatest among them is the Vilnius Gaon Eliyahu. He was the most prominent Lithuanian Jew, and one of the most sophisticated Talmud experts of all times. He is mentioned in all the textbooks on Jewish history. Encyclopedic definitions of the word "Gaon" refer to the name of the Vilnius Gaon. He was so influential that when someone says "the Gaon" it is automatically understood that the reference is to  the Vilnius Gaon. Every educated Jew, even the one who knows nothing about Lithuania, has heard of the Gaon Eliyahu. Gaon's character is entangled in various legends, and many believers place notes on his grave in the Vilnius Jewish cemetery, just like they do at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. To the Lithuanian Jews the Gaon is a symbol of Jewish spirit and wisdom.
The name "Jerusalem of Lithuania" bears witness to the unique spi¬rituality of Vilnius' Jews. There are various explanations as to how this name came to the existence. One legend has it that there were 333 Jews in Vilnius who knew the entire Talmud by heart, and that is why Vilnius merited this honorable and holy name.
Vilnius was famous not only as a theological and religious Jewish center. It also hosted the Romm Publishers, one of the most prominent publishing houses throughout Europe. Books were printed here in a variety of languages, and the most important of them -the Talmud- was compiled according to the strictest academic requirements, and used worldwide. When the Boris Kletskin Publishers, who printed books in Yiddish, moved to Warsaw, they kept "Vilnius" in their title, for that was the best advertising for them. The Strashun Library, perhaps the most famous in Eastern Europe, was located in Vilnius; it had quite a number of incunabula, old and rare books in Hebrew, Yiddish, and many other languages.
The Bund, the first Jewish workers' social democratic organization, was founded in Vilnius in 1897. At that time, more than a third of the world's Jewish population lived in the region that the organization encompassed — Russia, Poland, and Lithuania. Arkadij (Aron) Kremer, one of the founders and leaders of the Bund, is buried in the Vilnius Jewish cemetery.
Lithuania was also an important center of the Zionist movement. Litvak Moishe Leib Lilienblum was one of the leaders of Chibat Tsion. The Second Congress of the Hovevei Tsion Organization took place in Druskininkai in 1887. In 1902 in Vilnius the Mizrachi — the organiza¬tion of religious Zionism — was founded under the leadership of rabbi Jakov Reines. Elijezer ben Yehuda, initiator of the revival of the Hebrew language in Israel, was born in the province of Vilnius. Theodor Herzl visited Vilnius in 1903; a memorial plaque commemo¬rating the event was unveiled in the city on October 28, 1998. In 1908 Herzl's closest colleague David Wolfson also came to Vilnius.
The famous Jewish studies' institute, the YIVO, was established in Vilnius in 1925. The influence of YIVO on the life of world Jewry is perhaps best characterized by the fact that its Honorary Presidium members included Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Eduard Bernstein (leader of the 2nd International), and other world famous Jewish scientific and cultural personalities.
Lithuania had quite a number of other Judaic institutions, among them Judaica departments in universities. Three Judaica Departments were opened at the inauguration of the Kaunas University (later called the Vyrautas Magnus University) in 1922. One of them — the Department' of Semitology (Hebrew language and literature) headed by Nachman Shapiro, son of the chief rabbi of Kaunas — began functioning in 1925-26. A Department of Yiddish Language and Literature, headed by a celebrated academic and public figure Noach Prilutski, was established at Vilnius University in 1940; initially without any academic degree, Prilutski was nevertheless referred by all as Professor.
It is difficult to name all the lithuanian Jewish organizations, newspapers, theatres, music bands, hundreds of various schools, etc. Not to mention the scientific, music, art, literature and other personalities who made Vilnius, and Lithuania, famous throughout the world. Jascha Heifetz, Mordechai Antokoiski, Chaim Soutine, Moishe Kulbak, Avrom Sutzkever, Zhak lipsitz, Emanuel Levinas, Zalman Rerzen, Max Weinreich — these are just a few of those prominent names...
Another important feature of Lithuania's Jews was their humor. Two of three Eastern Europe's most famous Jewish humorists Motke Chabad and Shaike Faifer (his real name was Fliotzinger; he was the grandfather of the prominent Gnesin family of musicians from Moscow) lived and created in Vilnius. Their extraordinarily witty comments on Jewish woes gave an optimistic coloration to Jewish life, and helped to overcome the disasters that fate never skimped on as far as the Jews were concerned. Humor, it is said, ages. Could be. However, Motke's and Shaike's humor survived until nowadays. There probably isn't a single book of Jewish anecdotes without one of their, and Motke's in particular, jokes. And only a diversified and well-rounded Jewish community life could have produced such talented humorist "vitsling".
Categorical, but undoubtedly sufficiently founded is an assessment of our past by an esteemed thinker Professor Avrom Yehoshua Heshel who states that, based on the variety, multi-faceted ness, and scope of the creative mind of its scholars, writers, artists, and other intellectuals, “Vilnius rose above all other Jewish communities”.