In the Eastern part of Latvia, Latgale, Jews came from Ukraine, Belarus and Poland in the 17th and 18th centuries, of whom most belonged to the Polish culture of Yiddish. A large part of their community life was managed by the kakhal (self-government). Latgalian Jews were very similar to the Jews from the Lithuanian-Byelorussian region, in the Lithuanian and Polish kingdoms. After the liquidation of the Livonian Order (1561), Poland overtook the province and governed it under the name Inflantia until 1772. No exact data is available on the first Jews, who likely arrived from Poland in the early 17th century after pogroms in Vilna, Sandomir, Brest, etc. between 1605-39. A considerable number of Jews arrived in Latgalia in the mid 17th century escaping from the pogroms and massacres of Bogdan Chmelnitsky and Cossack Raids (1648-1653) in the Ukraine and Byelorussia. These Jews were Yiddish-speaking and Orthodox, living in a self-governing community (kahal). The Census of 1766 recorded 2, 996 Jews in the region (not including children). Many of these Jews were peddlers.

In 1772, after the First Partition of Poland, the Latgalian province of about. 5,000 Jews belonged to Russia. In 1784 about 3,700 Jews lived in Latgalia. The three Latgalian districts of Ludza (Lutsin), Rezekne (Rezhitsa) and Daugavpils (Dvinsk, Dinaburg) were, after 1802, part of Vitebsk province (gubernia), within the Pale of Settlement. Jews were expelled from rural places to towns and subject to double taxation. From 1804 Jews were allowed to live only in cities and small towns (shtetlach). As distinct from Courland and Riga, the economy of Latgalia was poor, being located in the east, far from the Baltic Sea and close to Russia. In spite of poverty they maintained their traditional way of life and had many children, increasing the growth of the Jewish population, which was up to 11,000 in Latgalia in 1847. Under Czar Nicholas I (1825-1856) there was obligatory conscription into the Russian army, followed by the cantonist tragedy, especially when the special powers of Recruit Kidnappers were established.The Jews in Latgale practiced traditional Yiddish culture. Their neighbors were Poles, Byelorussians, Russian, and ethnic “Latgalians,” who spoke a unique dialect. The Jews of Latgale practiced typical Eastern European Orthodoxy. The Haskala was only a minor influence on their culture. There were factions of both hasidism (led by the Rogachover Gaon Iosif Rosin) and mitnagdim (led by Rav Meir Simha).
More info about Jews in Latvia here!

We will go out of Riga to the east of Latvia along the left bank of the Daugava River, so-called Latvian river of destiny. Beautiful landscapes on the banks of rivers and agricultural lands on the way. Forests - Latvia's forests occupy 40% of Latvia's land. This tour is recommended not only for Jews whose relatives are probably buried in southern and eastern Latvia. This is great day out with new discoveries. The firsts top in Jaunjelgava town. The Jewish inhabitants of Jaunjelgava also called it "New Riga" or Nairi (abbreviation of the Yiddish Nai Riga). There was a time when this was economically devloped town. In 1881, of the town's 5,820 inhabitants, 71% (4,128) were Jews. In WWII Nazi did they dirty job killed Jews and the first years after the war, Jews from the places of murders were reburied in the Jewish cemetery of Jaunjelgava, where a monument with an inscription in Yiddish was erected. in 2003 a memorial was created in the Jewish cemetery with a commemorative plaque that reads in Hebrew, English and Latvian: "More than 500 Jews of Jaunjelgava were killed on August 7, 1941". The next stop is Jekabpils town where in 1941 at the beginning of July, arrested by Nazi Jews was placed two guarded synagogues. At the end of July, Jekabpils and Krustpils Jews was delivered to Kūki Marsh (about 15 km from Jēkabpils), where they spent about two weeks in the workers' barracks of the peat factory and finally was shot by the Latvian SD unit ("Arāja team") that arrived from Riga. 1958 The mortal remains of those killed in Kuku Marsh were reburied in Jekabpils Old Jewish Cemetery, where in 1959 a monument was installed - a light granite stele with an inscription in Russian and Yiddish "Eternal memory of the deceased Jewish residents of Jekabpils, Viesite, Nereta, shot by the German occupiers in 1941". Gostini Old Jewish cemetery, with 160 tombs, is located about three miles from the city of Jekabpils in the middle of forest. Here in the autumn of 1941 Nazis killed fourteen Jewish children of Gostiņi. Jewish teenagers, who in the summer of 1941 had been taken from the ghetto to work as cattle herds on farms, were shot on the edge of the Gostiņi Jewish Cemetery in the autumn of 1941. Their remains were discovered only in 2005, when restoration work was done in the Cemetery. On the way back stopower at Rumbula Memorial. In Rumbula forest near Riga in two days on the 30th of November and the 8th of December of 1941, more than 25,000 people were killed. This is a place where 1964 local Jewish activists have managed to overcome the resistance of the Soviet government and achieve installation of the memorial stone with “To the Victims of Fascism” inscription not only in Latvian and Russian languages, but also in Yiddish. Let’s visit!