The Last Remnant: A Journey into the Silence of the "Yerushalayim D'Lita"

In the first article of the Lithuanian series, I take you with us to the dry cold of gray Vilnius. To the secret attic in the synagogue, where we touched books that survived what the people did not. And to the moment when a single photograph on the wall reset our compass and sent us searching for a vanished village. This is a story about memory, family, and how sometimes you have to get lost to find your way home.

Vilnius welcomed us with a dry, prickly, merciless cold. The temperature gauge kissed minus two, the sky was painted opaque steel-gray, but the snow we had hoped for - that white blanket meant to cover the scars of Eastern Europe - refused to come. The city stood naked before us. Gray, cold, and hiding secrets.

We were a family delegation of seven: myself with my children Tor and Rom, my sister Chen with her daughters Or and Tal, and my sister Lee. But we didn't arrive here as ordinary tourists coming to see a beautiful European city, drink hot chocolate, and move on. We arrived here as citizens. A few months earlier, at the end of a complex bureaucratic process and deep genealogical research, we - my sisters, myself, and our cousins - received Lithuanian citizenship. This new passport wasn't just a document allowing free passage in Europe, it was an act of historical closure. It was the official stamp that we, the great-grandchildren of Rochel and Herman, and the grandchildren of Grandma Kalma, had returned. Now we stood there, the third and fourth generations, equipped with Lithuanian ID cards and warm coats, walking the streets of the old Ghetto and trying to understand: What was here once? And why did they leave?

The full delegation - myself, my sisters Chen and Lee, and the children Tor, Rom, Or, and Tal - well wrapped against the cold of minus two degrees. We stand in front of the statue of the Vilna Gaon, exactly where his historic house stood before it was destroyed. Seven Israelis seeking roots in the frozen ground, facing the greatest symbol of "Yerushalayim D'Lita".

For us, Vilnius isn't just a "capital city." The family research revealed a complex and fascinating picture: while we always thought of one side of the family (Shapiro) as rooted in the villages, and the other side (Kowarski) as urban, the reality is far deeper. Great-Grandpa Herman's Kowarski family was indeed flesh of this city's physical flesh. they were not guests here, they were landlords. My great-grandfather, Shmuel Chaim Kowarski, lived and breathed these streets, and also died here, at house number 14 on Novogrodzka Street (Naugarduko g), right in the city center. Grandpa Herman's cousins walked here - Simon Kovar, the celebrated musician who played in the New York Philharmonic, and Lew Kowarski, who became a world-renowned nuclear scientist.

But simultaneously, we discovered that Great-Grandma Pesia's side (née Grodzinski) also holds a key to this city - the spiritual key. Through her, we are connected by our umbilical cord to the rabbinic nobility of the "Yerushalayim D'Lita". She is the direct granddaughter of the "Gaon Yaakov" Grodzinski-Yaffe - a tremendous historical figure who authored the book "Gufei Halachot" (Warsaw, 1822) and served as the Rabbi of Liudvinavas. This isn't just a grandma's tale about "some gaon", but a magnificent and documented lineage linking us directly to the "Baal HaLevushim" (Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe) and the elite of the Lithuanian Torah world. Walking down the street was suddenly very personal and doubly intense: any old building could have been the physical home of the Kowarskis, the scientists and musicians, and any ancient study hall carried the spiritual echo of the Grodzinskis. These two worlds - science and spirit - walked with us in the alleys. And they are, in fact, exactly what defines me...

Like many great discoveries, our journey to the heart of memory began with an almost comical mistake. We were wandering near the MO Museum of Modern Art when suddenly we spotted a strange structure in the distance. A black, enormous, almost alien dome burst from the urban skyline. It looked dramatic, dark, different from everything around it. The modern instinct kicked in immediately: we pulled out phones, took photos, and asked the AI: "What is this?". The answer from two different AIs appeared on the screen with full confidence: "This is the Choral Synagogue of Vilnius."

This alien structure, peeking from behind the buildings near the MO Museum in the photo on the right, is what the AIs identified as the Choral Synagogue. And up close, the structure looks even stranger. This modernist architecture has misled many into thinking it is a planetarium or an observatory. In reality? It is the "Paviljonas," a Soviet flower pavilion turned to a nightclub.

My heart skipped a beat. We knew that the Choral Synagogue is "The Last Remnant" - the only structure that survived the inferno out of more than a hundred synagogues and "Kloyzn" (study halls) that operated in the city before the war. The family split up. The children continued with their activities, and I went with my two sisters, Chen and Lee - the three of us new-old citizens - on a detective mission. We wanted to see this holy place with our own eyes. But as we got closer, the bubble cracked. The magnificent building the AI promised us turned out to be something else entirely. It wasn't holy, but modernist Soviet architecture. A short inquiry revealed the amusing truth: this is "The Pavilion" (Paviljonas). Previously, it served as a flower market pavilion, and because of its dome, the elders of Vilnius tended to confuse it sometimes with a planetarium. Today? It's actually a concert venue and cultural bar.

We stood there in the freezing cold, facing the "synagogue" that turned out to be a nightclub, and realized technology had misled us big time. The irony was sharp: we sought prayers and found parties. We could have given up and returned to the hotel. The cold penetrated the bones, and the disappointment was bitter. But then we opened a good old map (digital, yes, but more reliable), and discovered: the real Choral Synagogue is on the very same street (Pylimo), just a ten-minute walk south of here. "We're going", we said. This walk in the cold turned into a journey back in time to the great and terrible days of Lithuanian Jewry.

To understand the significance of a single solitary synagogue surviving, one must first understand the magnitude of the loss. Pre-war Vilnius wasn't just "another city" with a Jewish community. It was the "Yerushalayim D'Lita". It was the undisputed capital of global Jewish intellect. If in the Hasidism of Poland and Ukraine the emphasis was on emotion, on melody, on the Tish and the Rebbe, then in Lithuania the emphasis was on the mind. On study. On precision. On pure truth. Here, in the 18th century, operated the Gaon of Vilna, the man who shaped the image of the "Mitnaged" - the scholarly, ascetic Jew, who sees the neglect of Torah study as the greatest sin of all and whose life is dedicated to incessant learning. His spirit hovered over the city even a hundred and fifty years after his death. Vilnius was a city of fertile contrasts: on one hand magnificent Yeshivas, and on the other the "Haskalah" (Enlightenment) movement, the socialist "Bund", vibrant Yiddish press, theaters, and huge libraries (like the famous Strashun Library). Jews made up about 40% to 45% of the city's population. Vilnius wasn't a Lithuanian city that had Jews in it, it was a Jewish city where others happened to live too.

A street sign in the heart of the old Vilna Ghetto. The Hebrew letters of "Jewish Street" (Žydų g.) are silent testimony to those who were once the majority here, and today are just a memory on ceramic tiles.

And our family was an integral part of this mosaic. When we walk here, we walk in the footsteps of the "Kowarskis" - a family of intellectuals, musicians, and scientists who came from Svenčionys and took root in Vilnius. This city shaped them: Uncle Paul's cantorial singing, Simon's playing, and Lew's scientific mind. Vilnius Above and Vilnius Below were the backdrop to Grandpa Herman's childhood.

While walking through the gray streets, thoughts wandered back to the year 1928. This is the year our family's fate changed. Grandma Kalma was then a little girl of five. Her parents, Rochel (née Shapiro) and Herman (Yehoshua) Kowarski, did what seemed like an inconceivable act: they packed their entire world and boarded a ship to the other end of the world - South Africa. But they didn't travel alone. Joining the journey was also Grandma Pesia Shapiro (Rochel's mother), who had been a widow since her husband Kalman died on Hanukkah 1917. Think about this image: a young couple, a five-year-old girl, and an elderly grandmother, standing on the deck and leaving home forever. Three generations on one ship.

Why leave? In 1928, the Holocaust was not yet on the horizon. But the ground in Lithuania was shaking underfoot in other ways. After World War I, the region was in total chaos. Vilnius passed from hand to hand like a play ball between Poland, Lithuania, and Soviet Russia. Jews, always perceived as immediate suspects, suffered from hunger, disease, and extreme economic instability. Antisemitism reared its head. Lithuanian and Polish nationalism pushed the Jews into a corner. The future looked bleak. Conversely, South Africa winked from afar. It was the "Goldene Medina" (Golden Land) of the Lithuanians. Almost 90% of South African Jews are of Lithuanian descent (Litvaks). Letters arriving from there told of opportunities, open spaces, freedom from pogroms. Pesia, Rochel, and Herman understood something many others didn't want to see: that there was no future for the family in Eastern Europe. Their decision to uproot everyone is the only reason we are walking here today. If they had stayed, our branch of the family tree would likely have been severed in 1941, like most branches of the family that stayed behind.

The facade of the Choral Synagogue ("Taharat HaKodesh") at 39 Pylimo Street. The impressive Moorish-Romanesque style and thick walls are what remained standing when the city burned. The Nazis turned it into a medical warehouse, and precisely this cynicism saved it from total destruction.

Lithuania's tragedy is different from the rest of Europe. It was total, and it was intimate. When Nazi Germany invaded Lithuania in June 1941, the extermination began almost immediately. There were no industrialized death camps here with railway tracks and sophisticated gas chambers like in Auschwitz. In Lithuania, murder was committed in shooting pits in the forests, close to home. Worst of all was the collaboration. The Lithuanians, who saw the Germans as liberators from the hated Soviet occupation, joined the work of murder with horrifying enthusiasm. Neighbors murdered neighbors. Most of Vilnius's Jews were taken to the Ponary Forest (Paneriai), about ten kilometers from the city. There, in pits originally dug for fuel storage, about 70,000 Jews were murdered. In total, about 95% of Lithuanian Jewry was exterminated - the highest percentage of extermination in any country in occupied Europe. "Yerushalayim D'Lita" was erased. Synagogues were looted, burned, or turned into stables. Torah scrolls became cigarette rolling paper or shoe insoles. Gravestones became stairs in municipal buildings.

And then, after heavy reflections and walking in the freezing cold, we reached it. The Choral Synagogue ("Taharat HaKodesh"). It has stood there since 1903, an impressive structure in Moorish-Romanesque style, with stripes of light and dark bricks and a large dome (the real one this time). How did it survive? Through a cruel cynicism of fate. The Nazis found a practical use for it. The large and ventilated structure was suitable to serve as a medical warehouse and sometimes as a stable. Since there was a logistical need for it, it wasn't set on fire. It survived not because of its holiness, but because of its thick walls and useful space.

Myself and my two sisters, Chen (left) and Lee (right), at the entrance to the synagogue. Three grandchildren of Kalma, standing with new Lithuanian passports and a trembling heart, moments before entering the place where our ancestors might have prayed.

We stood before the heavy iron gate. Our experience from Europe taught us that synagogues today are fortified targets. We expected cameras, armed guards, an exhausting security interrogation. We buzzed hesitantly. The gate opened and the wooden door was opened by a local Lithuanian, in my estimation not Jewish. The body tensed in anticipation of interrogation, but we received a wide and inviting smile. "Can we come in?" we asked in English. "Of course", he answered with a courtesy that melted the ice, "and you can also take photos if you want". This simple sentence was a moment of repair (tikkun) inside a city that knew so much hatred, the encounter with a Lithuanian guard who just wanted to help three Israelis find their heritage was surprising and moving.

The main prayer hall. The vibrant colors of the ceiling and the blue dome stand in stark contrast to the frozen gray of Vilnius outside. This vast space, capable of holding hundreds of worshipers, stood empty and quiet when we arrived, silent testimony to a community that was and is no more.

We entered the main prayer hall. The first thing that hits you is the color. The ceiling is painted a vivid sky blue, decorated with stars, a sharp and dramatic contrast to the gray outside. The pillars are tall, the Bimah magnificent, and the space enormous. It is built to hold hundreds of worshipers and a choir (hence its name - "Choral"). But the second thing that hits you is the silence. The hall stood empty. The benches were orphaned. It wasn't a silence of pastoral tranquility, but a silence of absence. We felt as if we had entered the belly of a giant whale sleeping its final sleep. We stood there, Kalma's grandchildren, the new Lithuanian citizens, inside the barely-beating heart of what was once a spiritual empire.

But for us, the name "Choral" suddenly took on another chilling meaning. This name symbolizes music, choir, harmony. And for the Kowarski family and the Shapiro family, music was in the blood. Standing here, it's hard not to wonder: Did Grandpa's cousins stand in this very synagogue? Did Simon Kovar, later the principal bassoonist of the New York Philharmonic, absorb his first notes here? Did Great-Grandpa Shmuel Chaim who lived around the corner stand in this very synagogue? Were the prayers that shaped Uncle Paul's mighty voice heard here? These walls absorbed not only prayers but likely also the musical notes our family spread all over the world.

A photo taken from where the guard took us - the second floor and the women's section. From here, among the old books and dust, we looked down at the Bimah and felt the weight of history and the personal connection to the place, far from the noise of the street.

And then the guard surprised us again. He saw our excitement, our eyes scanning every detail. "Do you want to see the second floor?" he whispered, as if offering us a key to a secret. We nodded immediately. He led us to an old wooden staircase, creaking underfoot, to the women's section and the side rooms. If the first floor felt like a preserved museum, the second floor felt like a living "Genizah". We arrived at a hall full of shelves. Resting on the shelves were hundreds of books. Old Gemaras, Siddurs, Responsa books, Mishnahs. The bindings were tattered, the pages yellowing and brittle. The smell was intoxicating - a mixture of old paper, dust, cold, and wood. A smell of time stood still.

Another photo taken on the second floor and women's section.

Chen, Lee, and I walked in silence. We touched the spines of the books carefully. We imagined the hands that held them eighty and ninety years ago. Hands of Yeshiva students, of educators like our Great-Grandpa Herman, of Rabbis. Perhaps even Great-Grandpa Shmuel Chaim, who lived a few streets away, held this exact book? Those hands turned to ash, but the books remained here, silent witnesses on the second floor of Pylimo Street. It was the most intimate moment of the journey. Without the kids, without the noise of the world outside. Just three siblings, the descendants of Rochel and Herman who escaped in time, standing inside the last library of Vilnius. We didn't need to speak. The knowledge that we were there, alive, breathing, and carrying this memory forward, was our small victory.

A glimpse into one of the synagogue's back courtyards. The peeling walls tell the story, serving as a living reminder of the melancholic atmosphere accompanying the city tour in winter.

We knew we had to go back to the cold outside, but just before we went down the creaking wooden stairs, something on the wall stopped us. It was a collection of photographs of "The World of Litvaks", a layout of communities that are no more. Our eyes wandered between the photographs, searching for one specific name among the myriad of names. And we found it: Marijampolė. The presence of this name, there, in the heart of "Yerushalayim D'Lita", was like a compass suddenly resetting. We realized that the visit to Vilnius, with all its power, was merely the prologue. We touched the general spiritual center, and the urban roots of the Kowarski family. But the heart of our family story lies south-west of there.

A photo from the synagogue archive showing the market of Marijampolė in the days before the destruction. This is what the life Herman and Rochel left looked like: horses, wagons, Jewish bustle, and a vibrant community that was almost completely erased.

We went out into the freezing cold of Vilnius. The sky was still gray, but something in us had changed. The AI's mistake that led us to the strange building was forgotten as if it never happened. We found what we were looking for. Not just a building, but proof of the victory of the spirit. Grandma Kalma left Lithuania as a five-year-old girl to survive, and we returned as adults to remember.

We zipped up our coats, tightened our scarves, and continued walking. But we now had a clear goal. This photograph was a reminder that tomorrow morning, we leave the big city and head out to the rural areas. We have another journey ahead of us - to the district of Marijampolė, and to the vanished village of Ažuolų Būda. The real journey - the search for the precise land in the vanished village - is just beginning. But we left Yerushalayim D'Lita knowing that at least in one place, on the second floor of one synagogue, the candle is still burning.