Riga Celebrates Isaiah Berlin, Its Famous Jewish Native Son

Next week, the Baltic city of Riga will hold its annual festival for its most famous Jewish resident: the political theorist Isaiah Berlin. Riga is somewhat of an outlier in the Jewish history of the area. Although Jews first came there in the 16th century, it was not until the 19th that there was a rabbi or ritual slaughterer. And while Jews in nearby cities like Kovno (Kaunas) or Dvinsk (Daugavpils) would have spoken Yiddish or Russian at the beginning of the 20th century, most Jews in Riga spoke German as their everyday language. All this is the result of the city’s history: while much of Jewish Eastern Europe was once part of Poland-Lithuania, where Jewish life flourish in the 16th through 18th centuries, Riga was ruled by Sweden before it was conquered by Russia.