On October 10-12, 2023, The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and
The Lithuanian Academy of Sciences held their first binational conference, on the subject of “The Intellectual Heritage of the Jews of Vilnius".
The conference was held in celebration of the 700th anniversary of the founding of the city of Vilnius, where one of the largest and most central communities in Eastern Europe existed, until its destruction during World War II. In the 17th and 18th centuries, religious creativity flourished in Vilnius, and in the 19th and 20th centuries it was an influential cultural center, from the Enlightenment movement and modern Jewish literature in Hebrew and Yiddish, to the new political movements that spread from Eastern Europe to the Land of Israel and the Diaspora. The conference was led by Israel Academy Member Prof. Israel Bartal, and was attended by twenty senior scholars from both countries, whose lectures focused on various aspects of the religious and spiritual creation in the city and the contribution of the people of Vilna in shaping modern Jewish culture, from the days of the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman (1729-1797) to successors of the legacy of Jewish modernism in Israel and the Diaspora at the beginning of the 21st century.
Addressing the conference’s opening session, Israel Academy President Prof. David Harel spoke of the importance of academic solidarity, and Lithuanian Academy President Jūras Banys expressed his unwavering support for Israel in this difficult time.
The conference was intended to be an in-person event in Vilnius, but due security reasons in Israel, it was decided to hold it in a hybrid format instead, allowing for Israeli speakers to participate online.