Last Sunday, our “Tisch” event brought people together around one table at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius. This Sunday, the conversation continues at the museum! Let’s explore the food, stories and traditions that have connected Jewish families for generations.
When: Sunday, November 15, 2026, 1:30 pm
Where: Lithuanian Jewish Culture and Identity Museum, Pylimo g. 4A, Vilnius
Admission: free, registration required: https://luma.com/n5vz7acs
The Sabbath begins at 4:20 P.M. on Friday, November 13, and concludes at 5:28 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit and prayers recited at 4:02 P.M. and completed before sunset at 4:20 P.M.
The Dubi and Ilan Clubs are inviting the youngest members of the Community to a ceramics workshop this Saturday. For some it could be their first works of art. Other activities are planned as well. The clubs meet every Saturday at 12:00 noon at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. For more information and to register, send an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard continues to execute terror plots against Jews and Jewish communities around the world.
In Australia Iran used criminals-for-hire to firebomb the Lewis’s Continental Kitchen kosher food outlet at Bondi Beach in Sydney on October 20, 2024 and the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on December 6. 2024. Criminals from Australia and “offshore” were also responsible for a van discovered on January 19, 2025, filled with plastic explosives with a list of Jewish targets and a note saying “Fuck the Jews” inside. New South Wales State Police and Australian Federal Police kept the discovery secret for ten days after that. Police believe that plot was intended to sow fear rather than damage property or take Jewish lives. Some media outlets in Australia and abroad labeled it a “fake terror plot,” as if sowing terror isn’t the point of terrorism.
In late October of 2026 the director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, or ASIO, Australia’s top intelligence and counter-intelligence agency, warned Australian journalist Sharri Markson the IRGC had targeted her personally. ASIO director-general Mike Burgess said former Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger had also been identified on an Iranian intelligence target list.
Despite Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likkud bloc winning the most seats in the Knesset in elections in mid-October, Israel’s president Isaac Herzog has decided to give the first shot at forming a new government to his opposition, the Yarash bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot.
Likkud came out with 53 seats compared to Yarash’s 48 in final tallies. Herzog seems to think Yarash might be able to cobble together a coalition or at least a confidence agreement with some of the so-called Arab parties who came out with 19 Knesset seats. Sixty-one is the magic number for a majority in the Israeli parliament, which has 120 seats.
Netanyahu poured cold water on the idea of siding with the Palestinian parties, saying they were dedicated to dismantling the Jewish state. Some of the Yarash bloc coalition parties also said before the election they would never countenance an alliance with the Arab parties.
At the first sitting of the Knesset Tuesday, Lnesset members from the two Arab parties walked out during the Israeli national anthem, HaTikvah, The Hope. Ra’am (United Arab List) leader Mansour Abbas remained in the chamber during the anthem but did not sing, according to Israeli media reports. United Torah Judaism chairman Yaakov Asher also reportedly stood without singing.
Daniela Bak has made a film about her father, Litvak painter Samuel Bak, called “Samuel Bak: Fragments/Hope.” The Lithuanian State Jewish History Museum will host the premiere in Europe of the film at the Tolerance Center in Vilnius on Tuesday, November 17 at 6:00 P.M. Samuel Bak as a child was imprisoned in the Vilnius ghetto, where he held his first art show. He and his mother survived the Holocaust. The film is in French with English subtitles. Admission is free to the general public, but Vilna Gaon Museum is asking movie-goers to register first.
For more information and to register, click here.
Photo: The Irish police the Garda intervened after protesters tried to move towards the Biden entourage at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.
by Saibh Downes, Wednesday, November 11, 2026
RTÊ–Two arrests were made after a group of protesters and onlookers gathered outside Trinity College Dublin during a visit of former US president Joe Biden.
Biden made the surprise visit to Trinity College Dublin as his son Hunter was awarded the Gold Medal for Outstanding Contribution for Public Discourse by the world’s oldest student society. He was joined by former first lady Jill Biden.
Pro-Palestinian protesters had gathered outside the event to voice their opposition. As the Bidens left the venue following the ceremony, some people moved forward and objects were thrown, including milk [, stones and bottles].
A number of Garda public order unit vans and officers were on site and at least two arrests were made.
Partial story here.
Photo: The 300-year-old synagogue in Amersfoort in the Netherlands whose anniversary celebration has become contentious due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Courtesy of the Amersfoort synagogue via JTA.
by Michele Chabin, November 11, 2026
Museum Amersfoort director cites “pressure” over social impact of situation in the Middle East; Jewish leaders denounce move as capitulation to anti-Semitism
JTA–An exhibition honoring the nearly 300-year-old Amersfoort Synagogue was supposed to be a celebration of Jewish life in Amersfoort, a small city in the central Netherlands.
Instead, Dutch Jews say, it could become the latest casualty of anti-Israel cancel culture that has targeted Jews in the Diaspora.
The city’s mayor in the last week has scrambled to save a planned exhibit on the synagogue after it was canceled, but so far has not been able to guarantee that it will open as planned early next year.
On November 4, Paul Baltus, the director of Amersfoort in C, an organization which oversees the Museum Amersfoort and several of the city’s other cultural institutions, said he was canceling the upcoming synagogue exhibition due to “pressure,” an apparent reference to possible confrontations by pro-Palestinian activists.
The Kaunas Jewish Community and the Kaunas City Museum held a concert last week called “From Čiurlionis to Today” and dedicated it to the memory of Kazys Grinius on the occasion of his 160th birthday. Grinius was president of Lithuania in the period between the two world wars. He rescued Jews from the Holocaust and he and his wife Kristina were recognized as Righteous Gentiles by the Yad Vashem authority in 2016.
Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas said: “The president was truly a very noble person. He and others wrote a memorandum against the massacre of Jews. This memorandum inspired others to rescue Jews during the war years.”
The Panevėžys newspaper Sekundė reported November 7 a direction marker and memorial to a Holocaust mass murder site has fallen into disrepair.
The marker and monument are made of large pieces of oak trees in a Lithuanian folk style and are in various states of decay. The wooden monuments are located along the Old Vilnius Highway and leads to the mass murder site in the Staniūnai Forest where 103 Jews were murdered.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
Natalja Cheifec continues her internet lecture and discussion series with a presentation on shtetls called “On the Shtetl: Seriously and with a Smile” this Thursday. She will talk about the lost world of Eastern European Jewish towns–shtetls–where spiritual tradition, daily worries and Jewish humor were intertwined in daily life. She will speak about the place of the synagogue, mikve and cheder in the community, the traditions which escorted Jews from birth to the grave, how Sabbath was observed and the wisdom hiding in Jewish humor. The presentation and discussion will take place in Lithuanian. To register and participate, click here.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Thursday, November 12
Place: internet
Historical Context
Before the Second World War, Lithuania was for centuries an important center of Jewish life and the cradle of the distinctive Litvak tradition, marked by its own culture of Jewish learning, religious thought and communal life. From June of 1941 the Nazi occupiers and their collaborators murdered some 90% to 95% of Lithuania’s Jews, one of the highest mortality rates among all Jewish communities in Europe. After Lithuania restored its independence in 1990, the surviving Jewish community (today numbering a few thousand members) renewed its public religious and cultural life. Its activities are organized through the Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC), an umbrella organization that brings together the country’s various Jewish organizations. At present the LJC unites 30 member organizations.
The LJC is a member of the European Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Congress.
Jewish Life
Today the Jewish community is active and through its institutions, programs and services offers activities for people of all generations.
The Choral Synagogue in Vilnius is one of only two synagogues currently functioning in Lithuania and one of the main centers of the country’s Jewish religious life. Morning and evening services are held there every day, throughout the year and on holidays. They are attended by community members as well as guests from Israel and other countries. A permanent cantor leads the daily and festive services. The community is working to strengthen the involvement of rabbis in its activities: rabbis visit regularly, and it is currently looking for a rabbi who would work more closely with younger community members.
Last week the European Jewish Congress held their general assembly in Israel. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky represented Lithuanian Jews there. EJC president Moshe Kantor presented Israel’s president Isaac Herzog the Golden Vision award for 2026, the EJC’s highest honor, for Herzog’s dedication to the Jewish people and the Jewish state, combating anti-Semitism and his efforts to bring closer together Jewish communities in Israel and around the world.
The Sabbath begins at 4:33 P.M. on Friday, November 6, and concludes at 5:28 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit and prayers recited at 4:15 P.M. and completed before sunset at 4:33 P.M. Wednesday, November 11, is Veterans Day in the United States and U.S. territories, originally marking the anniversary of the armistice in World War I, but later expanded to honor American veterans of all wars. The same anniversary on November 11 is marked in the United Kingdom as Remembrance Day and in Belgium and France as Armistice Day.
A new series of Hebrew lessons for young and old, beginners and the more advanced, under the tutelage of Ruth Reches, will meet for the first class on Sunday, November 15. The class for more advanced students starts at 9:30 A.M. and runs till 11:00 A.M., followed by the class for beginners at 11:15 A.M., ending around 12:45 P.M. The classes will be held at the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium, Kraševskio street no. 5, Vilnius. Registration is required by sending your full name and desired group to ruthreches@gmail.com.
Note: the language of instruction is Lithuanian.
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club is holding a pistol-shooting competition in Vilnius on Sunday, November 8, from 10:00 A.M. till 1:30 P.M. The cost is €11.00 and registration is required by midnight, November 6.
For more information, call Daniel at +370 687 83 005 or write info@maccabi.lt.
An exhibit of works called “Sugrįžimo iliuzija” [Illusion of Return] by Petras Vaitiekūnas will open at the Savickas Picture Gallery in Vilnius on November 7 and run till December 1.
Petras Vaitiekūnas was signatory to Lithuania’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. He has served as deputy foreign minister and diplomat. He’s also a physicist and a painter.
Time: opening at 4:00 P.M., Saturday, November 7, runs till December 1, 2026
Place: Savickas Picture Gallery, Tumo-Vaižganto street no. 5, Vilnius
Lithuanian Ethnic Minority Department director Dainius Babilas led a delegation of his colleagues on a visit to the Panevėžys Jewish Community on October 26. They met with chairman Gennady Kofman and member Nerijus Jakštonis and the group discussed a number of issues including regular reporting by Lithuania to implement the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and measures to fight anti-Semitism. They also spoke about the activities of ethnic minority NGOs and the need to publish information about their activities, as well as other issues including Holocaust education.
