I dedicate this translation in memory of the Neishtot Jews who lost their lives in the Holocaust. I dedicate this translation to those inhabitants of Neishtot who made Aliyah to Eretz Yisroel before and after the Holocaust and who helped build a wonderful country of which Jews the world over are profoundly proud.

The original booklet was published in 1982.  I took on this project so that today’s generation and generations to come who are not fluent in Hebrew will have a glimpse into the past where our ancestors came from. With the help of native Hebrew speakers, I translated the Hebrew and Yiddish almost verbatim with changes only to accommodate syntax and grammar differences.

I translated the essays pages 1-54. Pages 55-58 contains lists of those living in Israel (at the time of the original publication), and those who had died in Israel. Page 59 is a list of those living in the Diaspora (at the time of the original publication). The page that follows (not numbered) is a hand drawn map of Neishtot by Shlomo Berlowitz. This is followed by five pages of photographs (not numbered). These last 10 pages were not translated.

Special thanks to Mrs. Rachel Grossman whose help with the translation was indispensible. Special thanks to Eglė Bendikaitė, a native of Neishtot, who is a PhD. in history. Her thesis was “The Zionist Movement in Lithuania”. To research the original sources she learned Yiddish and presently teaches Yiddish at the Yiddish Institute in Vilnius She is also a researcher of Jewish Lithuanian projects. (Egle_Bendich@yahoo.de) She translated the Hebrew names of shtetls into their proper Lithuanian names and spelling, as well as German cities into proper German. (This will aid genealogist researching shtetls.)

Purposely, we retained Vilna instead of the Lithuanian Vilnius, Kovno instead of Kaunas, and Neishtot instead of Žemaičių Naumiestis.

I am the descendant of a long line of rabbis who served in Neishtot-Tavrig. One of the rabbis was the brother of the Vilna Gaon, Rav Avraham Ragoler ( 1722-1804). My grandfather, Rav Yaakov Moshe Lesin, ZTL” was the last rabbi (1925-1939). His oldest son, my father, Rav Yisroel Meir Lesin married Malke Glatt (also of Neishtot) in 1940 and immigrated to the US in 1941. They had three children, Shlomo born in 1942, Benjamin in 1943, and Hennie in 1949.

I am an orthopedic hand surgeon in Los Angeles. I have been to Lithuania and Neishtot 15 times since 1988. I founded the Institute of Righteous Gentiles (of Lithuania). This organization which has recognized and assisted Lithuanian righteous gentiles since 1989 is in its twilight, as their numbers are rapidly dwindling, along with the rapidly dwindling Jews of the generation of the Holocaust.

Maceva, (we would spell it “Matzevah” in English) is a Lithuanian organization dedicated to restoring the Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania. In November 2014 they cleaned up the Neishtot cemetery. They photographed and catalogued the 309 tombstones.