Bank of Lithuania Issues a Silver Coin Dedicated to the Vilna Gaon
Last week, the Bank of Lithuania issued into circulation the €10 silver collector coin dedicated to the 300th birth anniversary of the Vilna Gaon.
The Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania has declared 2020 as
the Year of the Vilna Gaon and the History of the Jews in Lithuania.
“By issuing the silver collector coin dedicated to the 300th
birth anniversary of the Vilna Gaon, we want to pay tribute to one of the most
famous figures in Lithuanian and global Jewish history as well as to show
appreciation for the contribution and legacy of the Jewish culture to our
country. Thanks to the Vilna Gaon’s authority and fame, the name of Vilnius
gained recognition all over the world,” said Vitas Vasiliauskas, chairman of
the Board of the Bank of Lithuania.
According to Albinas Šimanauskas, the author of the coin
brochure, the activities of the Vilna Gaon, his intellectual heritage and the
weight of his authority greatly influenced the development of the religious and
cultural identity of the Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) community. “For the past
300 years, the Vilna Gaon has been and still is one of the most acclaimed
religious authorities of the global Jewish community,” the brochure reads.
Harav Eliyahu, the Gaon of Vilna, was an especially popular
figure amongst Lithuania’s Jews. Almost every Jewish family in the country had
a portrait of the Vilna Gaon, while Jewish mothers would motivate their
children to aim higher by showing them the Gaon’s portrait and quoting: Vil nor
Goen (If you will it, you too can be a genius). This phrase, both in Lithuanian
and Yiddish, is also inscribed on the edge of the coin.
The reverse of the coin dedicated to the Vilna Gaon depicts
the letter Shin which represents the number 300. The bottom of the coin
features a symbolic Torah scroll with the engraved number 300. The obverse of
the silver coin depicts the sign of Lithuanian Jews (Litvaks) – a community
identity symbol representing the identification of Lithuanian Jews, as
citizens, with the state of Lithuania since the reign of Gediminas, Grand Duke
of Lithuania. The sign of Lithuanian Jews is surrounded by the inscription “The
Year of the Vilna Gaon and the History of the Jews in Lithuania” in the
Lithuanian and Hebrew languages as well as the number 5780 which stands for the
year 2020 in the Jewish calendar.
The coin dedicated to the 300th birth anniversary of the
Vilna Gaon was designed by artists Viktorija Sideraitė-Alon, Jūratė Juozėnienė
and Albinas Šimanauskas, and minted at the Lithuanian Mint. The mintage of the
coin is 2,500.
Coins are available for purchase via the official
distributors of numismatic items of the Bank of Lithuania.
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