The Jewish Museum of Riga (4) devotes a whole section to famous Jews born in Latvia. Among them: Chief Rabbi Avraham Kook (1865-1935), who was the mentor of the religious Zionist movement and the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine under the British Mandate, Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903-1994), Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997). On the building where Sir Isaiah Berlin lived is affixed a commemorative plaque. This building, like all those on the street, is due to the architect Mikhail Eisenstein (1867-1920), born in the kyiv region and father of the famous filmmaker Serguei Eisenstein > (1898-1948) director of the film The Battleship Potemkin, dealing with the 1905 mutiny of Russian sailors in Odessa.
The Holocaust resulted in the near-extermination of Latvia’s Jewish community. The Peitav Synagogue (1) is the only synagogue that was not destroyed during this period. Of the Choral Synagogue (2), only ruins remain which have been transformed into a Memorial. The ghetto has been transformed into a Latvian Holocaust museum.
Today, Riga has about 9,000 Jews and a community center (6) has been created by the chabads, (synagogue, mikveh, school, grocery store). A restaurant (5) is open in the basement of the museum.