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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
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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.
Tag 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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Yudel Ronder’s Story
Yehuda “Yudel” Ronder (1923-2016) was among the small number of Keidaner Jews who remained in Lithuania after the Holocaust. His story is both singular – a heroic tale of survival and persistence – and representative of the lives and experiences … Continue reading
Posted in Holocaust, Memoir, Personalities, Soviet Union
Tagged Lithuania, Oral history, Ronder, Soviet Union, USSR, World War II, 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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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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The Mir Yeshiva
By A. Simcha Hacohen Kaplan (Tzfat, Israel) The yeshiva at Mir, Poland, one of the greatest yeshivas in the world prior to the Second World War, was forced into exile. This great Torah stronghold had existed for more than 100 … Continue reading
Posted in Holocaust, Religious, Soviet Union
Tagged Education, Holocaust, rabbis, Religious, Yeshiva, Zionism
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Zvi Lipschitz, Zionist Martyr
By Ben-Moshe (Johannesburg) Originally published in the Keidaner Sick Benefit & Benevolent Society jubilee book, 1950. Young Zvi Lipschitz hy’d [1], from Kfar Etzion, was a Keidaner landsman. He was born in 1919 in the town of Yasven (Josvainiai), near … Continue reading
Posted in Interwar, Israel, Personalities, South Africa, Zionism
Tagged Israel, Palestine, Personalities, Zionism
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Lilienblum’s Journey
Originally published in the “Hebrew Encyclopedia,” Vol. 21, p. 797. Moshe Leib Lilienblum: born Keidan 1843, died Odessa 1910. He was an author and publicist, one of the founders of Hibbat Tzion (Lovers of Zion), and in his youth had … Continue reading
Posted in History, Personalities, Pre-WWI, Yizkor Book, Zionism
Tagged encyclopedia, Lilienblum, Literary, Personalities, Zionism
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Avraham Tzoref, Zionist Pioneer
From the “Encyclopedia of the Builders and Pioneers of the Yishuv.” Avraham Shlomo Zalman Tzoref: Born in Keidan, Lithuania on 1 Kislev, November 3, 1785 — or as he himself wrote later, in the year “TaKuM”[1], thereby hinting at his … Continue reading
Posted in Emigrants, History, Israel, Religious, Yizkor Book, Zionism
Tagged Emigration, Goldsmith, Israel, Religious, Zionism
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Schools in Keidan
By Zippora Kaplan The Jewish community in Lithuania was generally poor before World War I, but it was rich in spiritual matters and in the love of Torah. The vast majority of the Jewish people in Lithuania lived financially oppressed … Continue reading