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28.07.2023 - 19:41 / 34travel.me
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It’s hard to imagine modern Belarus without Jewish heritage. Before the WWII about 1 million Belarusians (almost 15% of the population of that time!) were Jews. It was impossible to find a Belarusian city or village without a synagogue at the end of the XIX century. But the perturbations of the 20th century virtually destroyed the amazing culture of Belarusian Jews. Read the guide to the main Jewish places of Belarus by 34travel.
from the History
There are different opinions on when first Jews appeared on Belarusian territory. Some sources indicate that Jews appeared in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania a in the 14 century. On the other hand, the most ancient Jewish graves date from the end of the 13th century.
The authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were pretty tolerant, therefore several centuries later one of the largest Jewish diasporas in the world lived on the territory of modern Belarus, Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania. Minsk became one of the centers of the world Zionist movement (the movement for the return of all the Jews to Israel). The situation started to change at the end of the 19th century. And the horrors of the revolutions and the First World War made it much worse.
In the late 20's — early 30's USSR had a very ambivalent policy: there was propaganda of cosmopolitanism and equality and the Jews were in power and at the forefront of culture. But it was accompanied by the struggle with their identity as Jews: all should have been Soviet citizens. The authorities tried to make «Yiddish» part of the Soviet world, and Hebrew and everything related to Judaism (art, schools, religious associations), was severely oppressed. For example, there was a Yiddish faculty in Belarusian State University, but it was forbidden to study Torah there. Better read Marx – he is also a Jew.
After the Second World War, the Jewish culture in Belarus was destroyed. Jews who had survived were actively assimilating under the pressure of the anti-Semitic policy. Mass repatriation began already in the 90’s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. There are about 12,000 Jews in Belarus today.
Main Shtetls in Belarus
Shtetl is a place where most of the population was Jewish. Shtetls and Eastern European Jewish culture are tightly connected. The shtetls were built according to the same scheme. There was a market place in the center, a synagogue (prayer house), a heder (an elementary Jewish school) and a yeshiva (an analogue of the university in the Jewish world).
Мir
A small village in the Hrodna region is known not only for its castle. In the 20th century it was one of the biggest and most important shtetls not only in Belarus, but in Eastern Europe in general.
There has been
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Ровно год назад, 21 марта 2017 года, редакция 34travel запустила Go to Belarus – большой и горячо любимый проект о «лучшем в Беларуси». В том и только в том смысле, как это понимает наша команда. Без идеологической мишуры или приступов самобичеваний. Главный редактор 34travel Антон Кашликов – о самом важном.
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