In the 20th century, not just attempts to establish a museum of Jewish culture in Vilnius, more precisely, there were three. The first time occurred in 1913, but the museum worked until the beginning of World War II. During its existence the museum has a collection of unique pieces of folk art, documents and periodicals, books. By the beginning of World War II in the museum his collection numbered more than 6000 books and thousands of documents, historical and ethnographic works. It was created by a large number of periodicals in more than 11 languages, as well as a rich collection of folklore. The museum could provide more than three thousand art works. But during the war, she was almost completely destroyed.

In 1944 the museum was again re-created by those who survived the war. The second museum had a goal to revive Jewish culture and store thousands of people who died at the hands of Nazism, as well as shot, burned and tortured in concentration camps. June 10, 1949 the museum was closed again on the orders of the Soviet authorities, which resulted in a policy of anti-Semitism. All of the museum's collection was distributed among Lithuanian archives and museums.

During the time when Lithuania was a Soviet republic, it was impossible to create any institution that could deal with the Jewish culture and religion. Forty years later, and already October 1, 1989 began operating the third Museum of Jewish Culture, which takes place until now. The head of the museum became the head of the Ministry of Education and Culture.

Open in 1989 Lithuanian National Museum Vilna Gaon had a collection of accessories consisting of Jewish ethnic culture, photos, articles, printed and handwritten documents, books and works of art. Not only the main, but the auxiliary funds contain 5 thousand pieces each.

The richest collection of the museum's collections can be divided into four sections: a collection of photographs of monuments of culture, renowned political and cultural events, monuments of prominent people, as well as monuments of everyday life; collection of cultural items that have been used in various religious ceremonies, because they had a historical significance, the oldest exhibits were presented dates of the 18th century; a collection of manuscripts and printed books (diaries, letters and documents); a collection of graphics, sculptures, paintings and textiles. The museum has works by artists: Efron Mihtoma, Lurie, Mane-Katz, Bindlera, Perkova, Mergashilskogo and other prominent people.

The synagogue is the main body of Judaism, cultural, political and economic center of the Jewish community. Currently in Lithuania there are two functioning synagogues - in Kaunas and Vilnius.

Elijah ben Solomon Zalman - The Vilna Gaon (1720-1797 years) was the most enlightened researcher Torah and Talmud in the 17th and 18th centuries. His superior intelligence and high spirituality gave him a great advantage in the interpretation of the Talmud and the Torah. This research, he devoted his life. The greatest number of his works were written in Russian and Lithuanian. That this man has developed new methods for studying the Talmud, as well as criticisms. He did everything possible to return to the Jewish law of the original rational basis.

Elijah ben Solomon Zalman found the use of the most important methods of the Babylonian Talmud, and in Jerusalem. He was the first Jewish scholar to understand that aging documents always leads to errors and misinterpretation is written. If there have been cases when the text caused too much doubt, he carefully carried out its comparison with the original. That's how he made it clear that it is written in complex and ambiguous fragments. In addition, the Gaon seriously studied geography and history, the area of ​​mathematics, anatomy and astronomy. He wrote about 70 works on a variety of topics, published after his death.

Currently, the museum has several permanent exhibitions that are dedicated to the tragic fate of the Jews before the Second World War.