Jewish Kėdainiai

Although a Jewish population is known to have existed in Kėdainiai (known to the Litvaks as Keydan) in the 15th century, no record of their activities at this time exists, and the fact that they were there at all is only evident in the fact that in 1495 all Jews were banished from the town. They appeared again around the middle of the 16th century (the banishment was repealed in 1503), from which time an extensive history is known. Early Jewish settlers were granted the right to produce beer and spirits in 1652, and also at one time had the monopoly on growing cucumbers. The Jewish contribution to Kėdainiai was by no means insubstantial, and the town gained recognition as a centre of Torah study, helped in part by the fact that the famous Gaon of Vilna, who married a local girl, studied there as a boy. On August 28, 1941, 710 Jewish men, 767 Jewish women and 599 Jewish children from the town were murdered by the Nazis and their willing local helpers, ending several hundred years of Jewish life in the town. Many Jewish buildings survived the Holocaust, notably but not exclusively the yellow wooden building close to Senoji Rinka where the Goan of Vilna studied and two surviving synagogues on Senoji Rinka itself, of which one now functions as a lively multicultural centre.