Operating now since winter, the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in the Vilnius neighborhood of Žvėrynas has now opened its doors officially. The gymnasium acquired the school premises on Kraševskio street in mid-2013 and spent two years renovating the dilapidated classrooms, corridors and assembly halls. September 1, the traditional start of the school year, became a real holiday for the first graders whose faces lit up as they received First Grade passports and the principal gave them a gift: a trip to McDonalds.
“Is it my fault that summer is over?” gymnasium principal Miša Jakobas quoted a line of poetry as he began his welcome speech. The experienced teacher paused after the line, and the audience erupted into laughter and applause.
September 1 began this way, combining the atmosphere of a holiday with mundane, everyday life at this somewhat unusual Vilnius school. Although it’s usually called a Jewish gymnasium, there are non-Jewish students as well, including Lithuanians, Russians and other ethnicities. More than 300 students will attend this academic year.
“I tell everyone: thank God and destiny that I had a teacher who was wise, intelligent and bright, who taught that religion, hope and love are like the equally important corners of a triangle. Well wishes, dear ones, on September 1,” the principal welcomed students briefly but sincerely.
“It sometimes happens that a school is very beautiful on the outside, but not so great inside. And it happened sometimes that a school doesn’t look very good on the outside. That’s how your school was for a number of years. I would like to wish for the community that knowledge would be acquired, that every individual find his or her own path,” Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius said.
All the speeches seemed to carry a sort of light nostalgia for the summer coming to an end, but Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon offered a few words which elicited laughter as well: “You are talking about the end of summer, but in Israel it’s always summer.”
This school used to be housed in a former preschool building in the Vilnius neighborhood of Viršuliškės and after renovations the plan is for a preschool to be housed there again.
The Jewish gymnasium moved into the former M. Dobužinskis School after it was reroofed and insulated, windows and outside doors were replaced, engineering and utility lines were modernized and a new surface was laid for the yard and athletic courts. The interior was also refurbished.
Back in 2013 things looked significantly different. And there was the unpleasant odor of old food suffusing the premises which failed to dissipate for several years after the cafeteria stopped working.
At a time-capsule burial ceremony in mid-2013, school principal Jakobas said that if everything went to plan, he would treat everyone to gefilte fish at the school’s opening ceremony.
The cost of school reconstruction was more than 11 million litas (3,185,000 euros). The Vilnius municipality committed to allocating 8.2 million litas (2,370,000 euros) and a portion of funding was supposed to come from European Union funds. The ORT, a Jewish education and vocational training NGO, contributed more than 3 million litas (just unde 1 million euros) as well.