Lithuanian Jews can be traced back some seven centuries. The classic Lithuanian Jew (Litvak) is known in folklore for a love of education, no-nonsense straight-talk and a sharp wit. Jews were settled from an early date in Vilna, as the capital was and still is known in Jewish culture (more precisely in Yiddish as Vilne). By the 18th century Vilna had become the world capital of traditional Talmudic learning, eventually becoming known as the Jerusalem of Lithuania, or Jerusalem of the North. Towering over the many great Jewish figures the city has produced is unquestionably the Gaon of Vilna (Eyliohu son of Shloyme-Zalmen, 1720-1797). Between the wars, Vilna (at that time under Polish rule and known as Wilno) was a bustling international centre of modern Yiddish culture and scholarship. During the Holocaust around 95 per cent of Lithuanian Jews were murdered, the highest percentage in Europe, many by local collaborator-killers, including the vast majority of the 80,000 Jewish residents who lived in the city prior to the Nazi invasion of June 1941. Today’s small and largely aged community of three to four thousand makes bold efforts to maintain its heritage.