In the interwar period, the situation of the Jews in Lithuania
was one of the best in Eastern Europe

Dear Olga, 

I find your discussion with Donatas very interesting. While I leave to Donatas to answer your other points, there is a couple of side issues that I do not completely agree with. 

I find your Logic 101 and the discussion about the supply and demand not quite accurate. Let me explain why. 

In the part of Russia that used to be Lithuania the resistance to Russification was very strong. So strong that the Tsarist authorities banned the written Lithuanian in 1864 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_press_ban) and exiled many local noble families to Siberia. Those families owned mills and controlled some of the trade - so that was lost. At the same time - the Lithuanian Jews had the so called "Golden age" - conditions for their trade improved, and as the local educated people were not allowed to return to their native country (e.g. the 'father' of modern Lithuanian nation J. Basanavicius was assigned to Bulgaria - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basanavicius), various additional business opportunities arose. It is no secret that Jews accepted Russian language and culture more readily than Lithuanians - and were better positioned to take advantage of the opportunities that were there in Imperial Russia. So for Logic 101 - could one say that some of the Jews took economic advantage of the circumstance by accepting the foreign (Russian) regime more readily? So for Logic 102 - where does that put them with respect to the local population - that was Catholic and rabidly anti-Russian? 

In addition to this, I would like to give the following quote from soc.culture.baltics 

"Even in the late 19th - early 20th century, when the Black Hundreds instigated and carried out pogroms throughout the Pale, the old Grand Duchy was far behind the Ukraine and Bessarabia in those, and I haven't ever read of any major pogroms on the territory of today's Rep. of Lithuania (if anyone knowns of one, please let us know). In the interwar period, the situation of the Jews in the Rep. of Lith. was one of the best in Eastern Europe. While probably not completely equal, they did not suffer such humiliating discrimination as, e.g., in Poland after Pilsudski's death (I have heard enough personal recollections of that from a relative of mine who lived in the 1930ies Wilno). There is little reason to talk about a "country with anti-Semitic tradition" in the case of Lithuania. That is, before WWII, when things abruptly changed. " 

As for supply and demand - this applies to a free market. If you own the market - you are in position to set the demand. As simple as that, no?

Tautietis