Description
The monument, unveiled in the summer of 2016, commemorates the synagogue that stood here from the first half of the 18th century and is believed to have burned down in the Dusetos fire of 1910. The author of the monument is Romualdas Pučekas. The Dusetos synagogue is perhaps first mentioned in historical sources in a letter from local Jews to Count Ferdinandas Fabijonas Pliateris dated 27 November 1722. Seeking to revive the town, which had declined after the Great Northern War and the plague, the count invited skilled Jewish merchants and craftsmen to settle here. They were exempted from the duty, applicable to other townspeople, to pay for the repair of the Dusetos bridges, ditches and embankments, as well as from rent for the houses and flats they occupied. In return for these privileges, the Jewish community undertook to deliver food supplies to the Dusetos manor every year at Christmas, Shrovetide and Easter. It is in this context that the elders of the Jewish community who signed the letter of gratitude to the count are mentioned, perhaps for the first time: Hirša Vigdorovičius, Favišas Juzefovičius, Morkus Lazarovičius, Matys Jakubovičius and Samuelis Solomonovičius.
