The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum expresses its sincere gratitude to Dr. Mindaugas Leonas Balevičius, who donated a microscope in a wooden box, marked with a stamp of the Jewish Teachers’ Seminary in Vilnius. Dr. Balevičius, as a physicist, evaluates that the microscope was probably used in the seminary for both educational and research purposes.

The new artefact in the museum’s disposition is especially important to the Collection of Historically Meaningful Artefacts. It testifies to the fact that there was a Jewish Teachers’ Seminary in Vilnius, and the Seminary used to prepare qualified teachers for Jewish schools.

The seminary was established by the Jewish Central Education Committee (Centraler bildungs komitet CBK) in Vilnius in 1921. The teaching language of the seminary was Yiddish. The seminary was led by a director and a council of teachers. Its activities were controlled by the Education Department of Central Lithuania‘s Temporary Management Commission. Later – by the curatory of Vilnius schools‘ county and the Ministry of Faith and Public Education of the Republic of Poland. According to the decision of the curator of Vilnius schools‘ county, dated 1931, the Jewish Teachers‘ Seminary in Vilnius was closed.

The Jewish Teachers’ Seminary in Vilnius had 5 groups of graduate students and produced more than 120 new teachers in total. The most famous lecturers of the seminary included Israel Biber, Max Weinreich, Yaakov Gershtein, Moyshe Leibovsky, Moyshe Kulbak and others.

There is no doubt that the microscope, donated to the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum by Dr. Balevičiaus, will create the opportunity to tell the history of the Jewish Teachers’ Seminary in Vilnius and to shed more light on its activities not only from written sources but also from a visual artefact.