Author Archives: Andrew

About Andrew

Retired journalist, Keidan descendent.

The Printed Version

Posted on June 22, 2020 by Andrew

Much of the material on this website got here via a project initiated several years ago by David Solly Sandler, a native of Johannesburg and Litvak descendent, who has compiled an impressive print library of material on Lithuanian Jews, there … Continue reading →

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Another Day to Remember

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Andrew

Recently, Jews around the world commemorated Yom HaShoah. Yet even if the Holocaust had never happened, however, this would be a season for remembering the suffering, death and displacement inflicted on the Jews of Eastern Europe by war – World … Continue reading →

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A Comment on Hirsh Bloshtein

Posted on May 13, 2020 by Andrew

After reading my post about Hirsh Bloshtein, and the memoir “A Return to My Birthplace, Keidan,” posted here, Aryeh Shcherbakov submitted the following commentary, which I have edited. Shcherbakov, of Tel Aviv, was born and raised in Vilnius, Lithuania. The … Continue reading →

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Yudel Ronder

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Andrew

I first heard of him in 1994, from Laurence Salzmann, a Philadelphia photojournalist who was documenting Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in Lithuania. At the time all I knew about Keidan came from my grandfather’s articles, which predated World War … Continue reading →

Posted in Holocaust, Personalities, Soviet Union | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Coming Together for Passover

Posted on April 5, 2020 by Andrew

“Getting together for Passover” used to be one of those second-nature ideas, an assumption for families and groups of friends every year about this time. This year, of course, the phrase has become bitterly ironic. With everyone more or less … Continue reading →

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A Century in Photographs

Posted on April 4, 2020 by Andrew

This website – and everyone interested in Keidan – owes an enormous debt of gratitude to the Kedainiai Regional Museum, whose director, Rimantas Zirgulis, has been the driving force behind efforts to preserve and commemorate the history of  this complex, … Continue reading →

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The Problematic Hirsh Bloshtein

Posted on March 27, 2020 by Andrew

Among the pages I’ve added to the Keidan archives this week is this 1958 article from the Yiddish newspaper Morgen Freiheit by the Keidan-born poet and novelist Hirsh Bloshtein. Morgen Freiheit was a publication “affilitated with the Communist Party USA” … Continue reading →

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Locating Lost Tribes

Posted on March 23, 2020 by Andrew

On the “Roots in Keidan” Facebook group, Bruce Patt asks if there is any documentation about a Keidaner organization in Chicago. The answer is … yes! In the 1930s, the Keidaner Association of New York published a monthly bulletin, filled … Continue reading →

Posted in Emigrants, Landsmanshaft, USA | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Opening the Archives

Posted on March 15, 2020 by Andrew

After years of procrastination, I have finally collected and published the bulk of the Keidan memorial books on line. Continue reading →

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The Badkhn of Keidan

Posted on June 25, 2019 by Andrew

Beginning in the 1870s, a Keidan badkhn named David Lindy compiled his wedding material into a beautifully handwritten book, which was later brought to America. Continue reading →

Posted in History, Music | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment