Kražiai

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Kražiai - town in central Samogitia (western Lithuania), between Varniai (32 km) and Raseiniai (44 km), on the Kražantė river.

The population in 1959 was 998; 1 6113 in 1923, ca 2000 in 1939. The town has a secondary school. It is a rural community centre. Under the Republic of Lithuania, Kražiai was the township seat of the county of Raseiniai. After World War II it was assigned to the Soviet administrative district of Kelmė.

Kražiai is one of the older settlements in Samogitia. Many barrow graves and fortress hills are located in its neighbourhood. The name of the locality is first mentioned in a 1257 document of King Mindaugas, by which a part of Samogitia was assigned to the Teutonic Order. Vytautas the Great during his first years of rule ceded Samogitia to the Teutonic Order; the regent he appointed lived in Kražiai. After the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, when Samogitia regained its freedom, Kražiai became the district centre. In the 15th century Kraziai was the christening centre of Samogitians. In the 17th century it became one of the Catholic centres of the country. There were several monasteries, and the Jesuits established Kražiai College. The old town of Kražiai is an archeological and urban monument.

With the transfer of the gymnasium to Kovno in 1848, and owing to a devastating fire the following year, the town lost its importance. Since the building of the Libau-Romny Railroad in 1880 it became still poorer; and many families emigrated to the United States, Africa, and Australia.

[edit] Jews of Kražiai

Known as Krozhe in Jewish circles, the town boasted a Jewish community dating from the 15th century. Among the rabbis of Krozhe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the following may be mentioned: Rabbi Eliezer (died in Vilna 1769), teacher of Samuel ben Abigdor of Vilna, and known as an eminent Talmudist and philosopher; Abraham (died 1804), author of "Ma'alos haTorah", a brother of Elijah of Vilna; Uri; Mordechai Rabinowitz; and Yaakov ben Menachem, who occupied the rabbinate for forty years, and died in Jerusalem.

Talmudic scholars and other prominent men of Krozhe of the same period were:

Abba Rosina, also called "Abba Chassid" (died 1792), brother-in-law of Rabbi Löb of Telšiai (he was a miller by trade, but corresponded with many prominent rabbis on questions of rabbinical law; Raphael haKohen of Hamburg was his pupil);
his son Hirsch (died 1810);
Elijah ben Meïr (Elie Krozer), a wealthy merchant, brother-in-law of the Gaon of Vilna, and lived at Krozhe in the first quarter of the nineteenth century (his son Ezekiel was rabbi at Shavli, and his son Jesaiah was dayan at Krozhe and rabbi at Salaty);
Moses Hurwitz (Krozer), dayan in Vilna, where he died in 1821.

Isaac ha-Levi Hurwitz; David, rabbi at Meretz; Zebulon ben Lipman, rabbi at Plungian; and Rabbi Jacob Joseph, who died in New York in 1902, likewise were natives of Krozhe.

In 1897 the Jews of Krozhe numbered 1,125 out of a total population of about 3,500. About 40 per cent of the former were artisans, a few being farmers and gardeners. Besides the usual charitable institutions, Krozhe had two synagogues, two prayer-houses, and about ten different circles for the study of the Bible and the Talmud.