Galicia was an important center of Jewish culture and religion throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It was the home to Hasidim and Maskilim, to traditional learning and financial and political success among the Jews. But, it was also the home of much Jewish poverty and suffering. This lecture will explore the history of the Jews of Galicia and how the historical study of these communities has changed in recent years.

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This lecture focuses on the role of the Vilna Gaon in the shaping of the religious personality of Lithuanian Jewry in the second half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century. The influence of the Gaon impacted on the development of the early haskalah in Lithuania and led to the condemnation of the Hasidim by the Vilna community. The Gaon's influence extended past his death in 1797 and created the environment that led to the founding of the Volozhin yeshiva in 1802.

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Jews have lived in Latvia since the early sixteenth century. The community developed and grew in the nineteenth century as Easter Latvia became part of the Pale of Settlement and Western Latvia remained outside the Pale. This lecture will compare the history of the Jews of Riga and its German influence with the history of the Jews of Dvinsk which was included in the Pale.

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The Jews have lived in Hungary for over a thousand years. This lecture will focus on the Jewish experience in Hungary on the eve of the emancipation from the Habsburg Empire in the 1860s. It was during this period that the Ultra-Orthodox disciples of the Hatam Sofer made several decisions that served to distinguish them not only fro the Reform but also fro the Neo-Orthodox, lead in Hungary at this time by Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer. This lecture will explore this decisions and their impact in determining the future of Hungarian Jewry.

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