Excavations at the Great Synagogue in Vilna — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Dr. John Seligman from the Antiquities Authority, who is currently continuing the archeological excavations at the Great Synagogue in Vilna with a team of archaeologists from Lithuania, Israel and America, writes about the 9^th of Av, a memorial day of lamentations over the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem and the symbolic parallel of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem of the North –the Great Synagogue in Vilna

Today, writes Seligman, after the right to Jewish self-definition has been restored with the establishment of the State of Israel, we can direct our laments on the 9^th of Av to the loss of the Litvak world and its culture which symbolizes the loss of the Temple with the loss of the Great Synagogue in Vilna