Kaunas Jewish Community Gets Together for Sabbath Every Friday

Šabatas Kaune

Every Friday evening about 30 members of the Kaunas Jewish Community gather to welcome in the Sabbath. They light candles, pray, provide commentary on a select passage of Torah, chat, eat together, remember those they have lost and offer congratulations on those personal milestones which come up. Often guests attend, whether they be Jewish students, teachers or tourists, who want to usher in the Sabbath with others, with the Jewish community. Often they are members of other ethnic groups who are interested in Jewish culture, traditions and history. Most recently two female students from Georgia and Serbia who are preparing a project about Jews in Lithuania at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas attended. As a rule the Kaunas Jewish Community offers its hospitality to those who show up. Almost always it turns out they aren’t strangers at all, only friends we haven’t met yet.