Prime Minister Netanyahu visits the Jewish Books Division of the National Library of Lithuania

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara visited the Jewish Books Division of the National Library of Lithuania on Sunday, where the curator of the division, Dr. Lara Lempertiene, told them about its books and writings. The Netanyahus were shown antique books from libraries throughout Lithuania before the Holocaust, including a commentary on the Book of Psalms from 1512 and writings by the heads of Jewish academies (yeshivot) in Lithuania, children's books and textbooks in Yiddish from the Lithuanian education system from before World War II and the writings of Zeev Jabotinsky, Chaim Nachman Bialik and Saul Tchernichovsky among others. Prime Minister Netanyahu: "We are at the Lithuanian National Library. There is a treasure here from 'Jerusalem of Lithuania' beginning with books from the Gaon of Vilna and commentaries on the Book of Psalms through the letters of Bialik. I am very moved to see here a postcard from Tchernichovsky. My father edited Tchernichovsky and Tchernichovsky recommended my father to Alexander Aaronsohn. Bialik was in the same academy (yeshiva), with my grandfather, in Volozhyn. There is an immense treasure here. Here you see how the Jews lived. There are Hebrew textbooks from 1937, a Shachar notebook; what excellent Hebrew. What a rich world this was; what has been lost!"