Tour in Žagarė, Lithuania

Jewish heritage footprints in Žagare

The small town of Žagarė (Zhager in Yiddish) right on the border between Lithuania and Latvia is proud of the longest list of descendants, whose names are well known in the Jewish world. For example, Reb Yisrael Salanter, whose code of strict moral discipline named Musar movement spread through many Lithuanian yeshivas; or Kalonimus-Zeev Visotzky, whose “Visotzky Tea” became a byword, and Visotzky’s name became synonymous with great wealth and business success and appears in much Yiddish literature. For centuries a small river divides the town into two historical areas: the Old Žagarė and the New Žagarė. Due to this division, local Jews also had two separate communities, which stayed that way even after both Žagarės were administratively declared as one town. Jerulita guide Daniel Gurevich is walking along the historical quarter of the New Žagarė and discovers how modern residents of Žagarė preserve Jewish heritage sites by putting plaques and inscriptions on the walls of their individual homes.