Darius Staliūnas, Enemies for a Day: Antisemitism and Anti-Jewish Violence in Lithuania under the Tsars. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2015. 284 pp.

Abstract

This chapter reviews the book Enemies for a Day: Antisemitism and Anti-Jewish Violence in Lithuania under the Tsars (2015), by Darius Staliūnas. In Enemies for a Day, Staliūnas explores the ethno-religious tensions between Jews and Lithuanians during the long nineteenth century. The book deals with issues of antisemitism and acts of violence committed against Jews in the provinces of Vilna, Kovno, and Suwalki, the northwestern regions of the Russian Empire in which Lithuanians constituted the majority. It provides a detailed analysis of blood libels that occurred in the region during the period and compares anti-Jewish violence in the Lithuanian provinces with the situation in the Belarusian provinces and in Eastern Galicia (of the Habsburg Empire) and with Lithuanian-Polish conflicts regarding the language of supplementary services such as sermons and processions in the churches.