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Fania
Fania Brantsovsky’s title at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute is librarian, but it probably should be legend, or living memory. She was raised in Vilna, went into the ghetto with her family in 1941, escaped in 1943 and fought with the Jewish partisans until 1945. After the war she worked as a statistician. The other day Read more
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Mushroom hunting
A lovely warm day in the forest, about 20 miles south of Vilnius toward the border with Belarus. Dima — a Russian former newspaper editor who lives here, and whose acquaintance I owe to the inestimable John Pancake — his friend Mischa, my American friend Ellen (who instigated my coming here in the first place) and I Read more
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Proletarians
Talk about bad timing. Among the strongest memories of my visit here 20 years ago are – were – some massive Soviet-era hero statues, one each on the four corners of a bridge over the Neris River. Workers, peasants, soldiers, students. Proletarians all, earnestly building the socialist state. Turns out they were torn down just Read more
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Main Street
A main drag doesn’t tell you everything about a city, but it does tend to concentrate activity, and thus become part of the local narrative. This is Gedimino Prospekt, roughly Vilnius’ Champs Élysées – or Broad St., if you prefer a Philadelphia analogy. In Tsarist times it was St. Georgjius Ave. After World War I, Read more
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Eating Yiddish
Speaking of eating, classes began yesterday at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute’s summer program, my reason for coming here. Inexplicably, I am in the advanced class, which means that after two days my head is about to explode. The teachers are scholarly, erudite and eloquent. Following along is like holding on to a roller coaster with Read more
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New food
You’d think, living in the cosmopolitan foodie U.S., that the chance of running across something totally new and unknown to eat would be fairly small. South Asian, East Asian, Ethiopian, Peruvian, been there, done that, check check check. But it’s a big world, and apparently a lot remains out there to be tasted. Witness last Read more
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