THE CITY OF KEIDAN:
An Historical Memoir

by Boruch Chaim (Alter) Cassel "Dedicated to the memory of my dear father, Reb Moshe Zusman (Boruch Zundels) and my dear mother, Sheyne Chaya Cassel."

Framed within this general history of Lithuania the reader will find the history of the city of Keidan - both the non-Jewish city and Jewish Keidan at its center. The reader will also see how the Jewish community in Keidan developed into on of the most significant communities in Lithuania, due to special conditions that applied to it.

Later, due to various other circumstances, Keidan declined, like many other Jewish communities in Lithuania. But in its golden age the Jewish community of Keidan played a significant role in both Jewish and Lithuanian history. The influence that Keidan exerted on the young genius who later became known as the Gaon of Vilna, is by itself sufficient evidence of the city's importance.

As a Keidaner of at least the fourth generation, the author of this memoir took it on himself to investigate the history of the city, using a number of historical sources, and to present the "lineage" of a poor-but-proud community. Thus he feels that he has done his duty to his native city and his countrymen, and that he has also contributed to the overall history of the Jews of Lithuania.

B.Ch. Cassel
Rosh Hashona Eve, 5691
September 22, 1930
SeaGate, New York Harbor

In ancient times, the dense forests of northeastern Europe extending from the Nieman river to the Baltic Sea were laden with bewitching secrets. Parts of the forest would go unvisited by humans for centuries at a time. There were unimaginably large oaks whose trunks could not be encompassed by a circle of five men. Their branches were thickly enmeshed, locking out the sun's rays in the summer and protecting the ground from snow in the winter.

Many kinds of trees, such as birch, pine, alder and ash, were thoroughly intertwined and supported the rich collections of large and small animals that populated the northern forests - wild horses, deer, bears, wolves, foxes, hares, squirrels and so forth. Summer and winter the forests resounded with millions of birds of all sizes. The rivers were full of every sort of fish, from huge pike to the tiniest garfish. Hunters and fishermen found a true paradise in this region, which is called Lithuania.

The early inhabitants had no idea of their origins. Their language shows no links with those of the surrounding populations - Germans and Slavs - although it shows some traces of Sanskrit, the sacred Hindu language. Like most strong, naive children of nature, these Lithuanians mainly occupied themselves with hunting and fishing and eventually, slowly, learned to work the earth. They were not builders of cities, nor even of large villages, but lived in small, widely dispersed hamlets which made it easier to hunt and fish, to till small patches of land and to tend a few cattle.

There were evidently no links among these settlements; if a stranger stumbled onto a hamlet he could only find his way to a neighboring one by following the far-off barking of a dog, or the crowing of a rooster. There were almost no trodden paths connecting one tiny group of souls with another.

Long after most of Europe had adopted Christianity the Lithuanians, like their near neighbors the Prussians, persisted in idol-worship. The bolt of lightning, that most powerful utterance of nature, became the symbol of the mightiest ruler of the heavens, their greatest god, whom they named Perkunam. There also were many variously-named minor gods whose functions related to the mysteries of fire. Priests were completely in charge of their lives, and there were occasional human sacrifices at their altars.

Being separated from other Europeans, and being true children of nature, they tended to be good-spirited and industrious. Despite their impressive statures and strong bodies they were not warlike, nor did they pursue any grand projects. In this manner they lived happily and independently for centuries.

At the end of the 10th century, Christian missionaries began to appear in Lithuania, but at first no one seemed to pay much attention to them. However, when they persisted in mocking the native religion and its gods, the missionaries were persecuted by the Lithuanians. Eventually, the natural wealth of Lithuania attracted Germanic horsemen-monks - the Knight Templars - Crusaders who penetrated the region with sword and cross in order to spread Christianity.

In about the middle of the 12th century the Templars built their first border fortification - the Vogelsang¹, which marked the start of a series of military invasions of Lithuania. The Lithuanian forest-dwellers were forced to take sword in hand to protect themselves, until 1410 when the strength of the Crusaders was finally broken.

Over centuries of external threats and military struggles, the Lithuanians were forced to unify themselves through common language, customs and religion. Their priests led them in their battles against the Crusader-monks trying to sustain their heathen religion against the onslaught of Christianity.

The first great Lithuanian ruler was Rinkoldis, who assumed power in about 1226 and under whom an important new epoch began. The German Crusaders had been vanquished and Lithuania began to spread out in all directions. His son, the ruler Minaugas, was a great hunter and warrior who had repelled the penetration of western Europe by Ghengis Khan's Tatars.²

In an attempt to bring an end to the plundering attacks by the German Crusaders, Minaugas sent an emissary to the pope in Rome with an offer to accept Christianity under the condition that the incursions by the Crusaders stop. Minaugas became a Christian, and the Pope ordered the Crusaders to halt their invasions of Lithuania. But the plunder of Lithuania was too profitable for the Crusaders, who persisted in robbing and destroying as before.

Minaugas could not tolerate this. He renounced his Christian baptism, and the land returned to idolatry. German Crusaders who had been captured were burned, with great pomp and ceremony, as sacrifices to the Lithuanian gods in an attempt to placate them for the short-lived dalliance with Christianity. These fire-sacrifices took place after every battle. In this way, a long stretch of Lithuanian history evolved as a struggle against Christianity.

Lithuania did not become truly great until the reign of Gedimines, who had ties to many Russian princes. By means of great inheritances and many successful wars he succeeded in expanding Lithuania far into southern and eastern Europe. He also captured Kiev, but the focal point of Lithuania remained around the Nieman and the other rivers that flow into it.

Though Gedimines was an idol-worshiper he was tolerant of other beliefs, and he allowed the building of many prayer houses and churches. His daughter became the queen of Poland when the Poles sought an alliance with by-then powerful Lithuania. Gedimines fought the German Crusaders as did his famous, heroic son Algerdas. Algerdas had many sons, among them the eventual ruler Jagiello. In 1386, when Jagiello was already ruler, he married the beautiful queen of Poland, Jadwiga, and thus unified Lithuania with Poland.

It turned out that the smaller Poland swallowed the larger Lithuania both physically and spiritually, and turned into a very significant political entity. A pre-condition of the marriage was that Jagiello and the whole Lithuanian nation with him should convert to Roman Catholicism, in exchange for which he would become the monarch of Poland. A multitude of Catholic priests and monks flooded Lithuania. The idol-worshiping temples were converted to Catholic churches and cloisters, and hundreds of Lithuanians were baptized. Idol-worship fell as a national religion in the last corner of Europe where it had persisted, and the Lithuanians were condemned to political decline.

The rulers and other influential individuals in Lithuania began to absorb the Catholic religion and the Polish language and culture, and in the process distanced themselves from the Lithuanian masses, from their customs and from their language. Lithuania as a distinct nation gradually disappeared and became a province of Poland. The nobility spoke Polish and their loyalities were Polish. The peasants remained the only ones who spoke Lithuanian. As a result, the Lithuanian peasants became more estranged from their lords than were the Polish peasants from the Polish lords, with whom they at least shared a common language. Lithuanian, which had been dominant for so many hundreds of years, became marked as a God-hated language of slaves.

Actually, native idol-worship did not completely disappear with Lithuania's official conversion to Christianity. It persisted quietly in the hands of the still-powerful old priests, who hid out in the deep forests. There continued to be ritual human sacrifices to ancient gods along the banks of the large rivers. Roman Catholic priests had many bloody encounters with the heathen-priests, until finally the last "eternal flame" burning on an idol-worshiping altar was extinguished in 1417.

The Lithuanians gave up everything for Christianity: Their pride as a mighty nation, their political independence, their unique civilization, their forests, fields and rivers. They lost their personal freedom and were turned into an inconsequential multitude of slaves.

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