Jewish heritage tour to Kaunas

A private tour with a personal driver and guide to the most notable Jewish heritage sites in Kaunas. A full-guided program, designed to represent Litvak Heritage. You will learn about Writers, Poets, Scholars, Rabbis, and Diplomats who lived, worked, and made impossible things.
On the Jewish Kaunas Tour, you will learn a lot of new names, facts and will hear extraordinary stories.

Our jump into the incredible history of the second largest and influential Jewish community in Lithuania starts on Aleksotas hill. Here, at the panoramic platform, you will hear the medieval history of Kaunas (Kovno in Hebrew). You will see the structure of Kaunas neighborhoods, and the guide will present the main historical timeline. It will be interesting for you to know why local Jews call this hill – Mapu Hill.

We will proceed with Kaunas old town tour. Will pass by the remains of a medieval castle to the beautiful natural park, bordered by the two main Lithuanian rivers’ confluence. To visit Kaunas and not see Whyte Swan? No, you are not going to miss impressive and cute town hall buildings. Here at the Town-hall, you will see a Tourism information center, and this is the right place to ask about tourist attractions and vibrant Kaunas nightlife.

On the way to Kaunas functioning synagogue Ohel Yakov, we will pass through Abram Mapu and Ludvik Zamenhof streets. The story of famous Litvak, who had a dream to create an artificial language, and people would stop fighting and better understand each other.

Then we will show you the famous Shvabe Hebrew Gymnasium. Here we will speak about Jewish education and the impact on the Jewish culture made by Kovna Jews. About Lea Goldberg – number one poet of Israel, Hermann Minkovski – Professor and teacher of Albert Einstein, Leon Bramson – founder and leader of ORT global education network, Emanuel Levinas – the world knowen philosopher and many overs.

We will visit Synagogue and a small Kaunas Jewish museum. Continue to the main pedestrian street. Here we can mention a talented artist M.K. Ciurlionis. His music and paintworks made a significant impact on many impressionists.
We are going to talk about sculptor Arbit Blat and his works on the holocaust theme and a pioneer of Israel modernist painting Yehezkel Streichman. Near the sculpture of Daniel Dolsky, you will hear the narrative of the Jewish boy matures as a creator of Lithuanian Pop music.

You can read on the blog about Jewish heritage tour.

Next is a visit to the Kaunas Sugihara museum. It is essential to speak about righteous gentile, heroes who risked their lives to save Jewish souls.

We will make a short stop at the active Jewish cemetery. It is essential to visit graves of two famous rabbis – Yitzkhak Elkhonana Spektor and Dober Kahane Shapiro.

In the afternoon, we will visit Slobodka, a Famous Jewish neighborhood of Kovno. Here, you will hear the story of Great Rabbi Alter of Sloborka, Rabbis Salanter, and rabbi Grobzenski. We will see the still-standing building of Knesset Israel Yeshiva, which has a connection to Kamenets Yeshiva.

We will see the notable landmarks of the Ghetto are: Selection square, ghetto gate, Ghetto pedestrian bridge. And as of last stop, we continue to the 9th fort museum. The museum will give a clear and informative overview of two occupation periods. The first building describes the Soviet occupation of Lithuania and the “Red Terror” against Lithuanian citizens. And letter we will continue to fort building and focus on the Nazi occupation period. Ghetto pictures, the story of order-1005, Zonder commando, the room dedicated to Rightiers among the nation. We will end our tour near the monument and a mass grave for 50 000 people 30 000 jews among them.