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Recent blog posts
- Aharon Pick’s Memoir
- Documenting the Holocaust
- Tracing the Pick Family
- Aharon Pick, Holocaust Witness
- Searching for Tsemach Pick
- Recalling those who survived the Keidan massacre
- ‘Good Morning, Lithuania’
- The Printed Version
- Another Day to Remember
- A Comment on Hirsh Bloshtein
- Yudel Ronder
- Coming Together for Passover
- A Century in Photographs
- The Problematic Hirsh Bloshtein
- Locating Lost Tribes
Categories
The Keidaner Network
Keidaner descendents reside all over the world. Keep in touch, share memories and materials about the community and its diaspora, via the Facebook group “Roots in Keidan.” Click the link to join.
Category Archives: Zionism
In Prison
Dr. Aharon Pick This recollection by Keidan native Dr. Aharon Pick, of his time as a poor yeshiva student in Kovno, was published in 1935 in HaOlam, the official Hebrew weekly organ of the World Zionist Organization. Edited by Nahum … Continue reading
Posted in Memoir, Personalities, Pre-WWI, Religious, Russia, Zionism
Tagged AharonPick, Memoir, Personalities, pre-WWI, Religious, Tsarist Russia, Yeshiva, youth, Zionism
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Reb Zvi the Cooper
(Memories of M.L. Lilienblum’s father) By Dr. Aharon Leib Pick (Šiauliai) Published (in Hebrew) by the Keidaner Assn. of NY, 1930. Translated by Nathaniel Stampfer. The area around the Lithuanian city of Keidan has been famous for its beauty since … Continue reading
Posted in History, Memoir, Personalities, Pre-WWI, Religious, Zionism
Tagged 1930 Zaml Bukh, AharonPick, Lilienblum, Personalities, pre-WWI, Religious, Zionism
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Exodus, Interrupted
The story of Keidan’s Sroelov and Smilg families By Tamar Dothan (Jerusalem) My grandparents, Chaya Smilg and Chaim Ber Sroelov, were married before World War I. Chaim Ber was operating the family’s wholesale beer business, as his father had passed … Continue reading
Posted in History, Holocaust, Israel, Memoir, Soviet Union, Zionism
Tagged Economy, Family history, Holocaust, Interwar, Israel, Zionism
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A Family Dispersed
By Sonja Shacknofsky-Setting My father, Joseph Setting, was born in Keidan in 1910. He arrived in Cape Town on Christmas morning, 1927, then went on to Johannesburg, where he found work with relatives. My grandparents likely sent him to South … Continue reading
Posted in Emigrants, Interwar, South Africa, Zionism
Tagged Diaspora, Families, Hashomer Hatzair, Israel, Kibbutz
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A Flag Comes Home After 16 Years
Originally published in “Israel Horizons” magazine, Dec. 1956. Miracles can happen even to a flag. Recently, the flag of Gdud Maapilim, of Ken Keidani of Hashomer Hatzair, was brought to Israel, the only flag of the Lithuanian youth movement to … Continue reading
Posted in Holocaust, Personalities, Soviet Union, Yizkor Book, Zionism
Tagged Beit Zera, Hashomer Hatzair, Israel, Kibbutz, Personalities, Youth movements
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Keidan’s Mutual Aid Societies
By Aryeh Leonard Shcherbakov and Andrew Cassel Jews have always been absorbed with problems of ethics and morality. Both before and during the diaspora, proper behavior and relations within the family and community have been major concerns, particularly concerning treatment … Continue reading
Posted in Emigrants, Israel, Landsmanshaft, South Africa, USA, Zionism
Tagged Beit Zera, emigrants, landsmanshaft, South Africa, Zionism
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In Pursuit of the Murderers
Excerpts of letters from Yehuda Ronder, Kaunas After surviving the war as a soldier in the Red Army’s 16th Lithuanian Division, Yudel Ronder returned home to Lithuania and spent the rest of his life there. Throughout the post-war years and … Continue reading
Posted in Holocaust, Yizkor Book, Zionism
Tagged Holocaust, Lithuania, massacre, postwar, Ronder
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Young Refugees in Keidan
By Moshe Domb (Kfar Menachem, Israel) After many hardships and torments, we gathered in Keidan, in Lithuania, to continue the training as Kibbutz Manof that began in Włocławek [Poland]. We were all graduates of the Hashomer Hatzair movement, preparing for … Continue reading
Posted in Emigrants, Holocaust, Israel, Memoir, Personalities, Soviet Union, Zionism
Tagged Hashomer Hatzair, Holocaust, Lithuania, Red Army, Soviet Union, Youth movements
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The Russian Exile
By Bella Adler (Basel, Switz.) I was born and raised in Keidan. Our Jewish life was very well developed. We had Tarbut and progymnasium Hebrew schools. Most young people were Zionists. We had Hashomer Hatzair, Beitar and other organizations. We … Continue reading
Mass Graves
By Chaya Gel (Jerusalem) I was born in Keidan, where I lived in 16 Gedimino Street. When the Russians conquered Lithuania the first time in 1940, they nationalized our business and seized our house. I went to live with my … Continue reading