Rigaריגה

Latvia

Riga, the capital of Latvia, was founded in 1201 as the seat of the bishop of Livonia, joined the Hanseatic League in 1282, and was later ruled by Sweden (1621-1710) and the Russian Empire (1710-1917); its historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The chemist Wilhelm Ostwald was born there and taught at the Riga Polytechnic. Riga had a substantial Jewish community: the Lubavitcher Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn lived there in 1927-29 and 1930-34, and the scholars Yeshayahu and Nechama Leibowitz were born there. Under Nazi occupation its Jews were forced into a ghetto, and some 24,000 Latvian Jews were murdered at Rumbula in 1941.

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