A chess tournament to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel will be held at 3:00 P.M. on Sunday, May 27, at the Lithuanian Jewish Community. For more information and to register, write info@metbor.lt or call 8 655 43 556.
Lithuania in Works by Litvaks
Lithuania as remembered by world-famous artists from their youth is the theme of an exhibit opening at the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum June 6. Over 40 works will be displayed from the museum’s collection and from other museums and private collections in Lithuania and abroad. Most will be displayed publicly for the first time. Besides the artwork, the exhibit includes information stands and two art films.
Vilnius Dance Troupe to Perform in Tel Aviv
The Vilnius dance troupe Low Air will give a performance called Game Over at the Tmuna Theater, Shontzino 8, Tel Aviv, Israel, at 8:00 P.M. on May 24.
Inspired by the author Julio Cortázar, Low Air presents an innovative live dance installation which connects both visual and performing arts.
The performance Game Over revolves around the gaming perspective, inviting audience to witness the collision of reality and dreams. Spectators imagine themselves in a particular situation and considers their relationship with others and themselves. Subtle feelings interfere with fiction and magic, while becoming an inevitable element of movement and sight.
Cortázar writes magical realism which has inspired artists for some time now. The writer’s stories are particularly vivid and have become a map for motion and choreography.
More information here.
Invitation to “From Lithuania to Santiniketan” Book Presentation
March of the Living 2018
At 12 noon, Wednesday, May 23, 2018, we will march with Litvaks from Israel on the path 70,000 Jews walked to their mass murder from the Ponar railroad station to the Ponar Memorial Complex.
We invite you to come and remember what happened.
This year we ask those wishing to make use of transportation provided by the Lithuanian Jewish Community to register beforehand by sending your name and surname by email to info@lzb.lt or to call +370 672 40942. A bus will depart from Pylimo street no. 4 at 10:50 A.M. on March 23 to carry registered participants to the event.
Lecture Series
A lecture on Gaucher’s disease.
Gaucher disease is an inherited disease which causes specific organs and tissues to accrete specific substances. Compared to the general population, Ashkenazi Jews have a much higher incidence of Gaucher’s.
This is a unique opportunity to learn more about this disease from medical experts and to take a free blood screening.
Come at 1:00 P.M. on Sunday, May 13, 2018, to office number 306 at the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius. For further information please call 8 678 81514
Zenowiusz Ponarski Book Presentation
The Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library will host the Vilnius Polish Institute’s presentation of Zenowiusz Ponarski’s book “Friend of Lithuania and the Birds. On Oskar Miłosz” and discussion called “Czesław Miłosz and Oskar Miłosz: Diplomats in the Service of Poland and Lithuania” at 6:00 P.M. on Monday, May 14, at the library located at Gedimino prospect no. 51, Vilnius.
The event is being co-organized by the Polish Institute, the library and Znad Wilii magazine. The author, Zenowiusz Ponarski, was born in Vilnius in 1921 and lived in Szczecin in Poland after World War II. He currently resides in Toronto, Canada. The author of many books about notable 20th century Polish and Lithuanian people, in this book he goes beyond the facts of the lives and work of Oskar Miłosz as known from his cousin Czesław and provides completely new and hitherto unknown material. Oskar Miłosz was an ardent proponent of Lithuanian independence during World War I, acquired Lithuanian citizenship and served as a member of the first Lithuanian legation to the League of Nations. The discussion following the book presentation is intended to reveal both Miłoszes’ contributions to Poland and Lithuania. Panelists are to include poet, writer and publisher of this book Romuald Mieczkowski, Naujoji Romuva magazine editor Andrius Konickis, VU lecturer Dr. Darius Kuolys, Dr. Józef Szostakowski representing the Władysław Syrokomla museum in Bareikiškės, Lithuania, and others. The event and discussion will be held in Polish with synchronous translation to Lithuanian. The event is free and open to the public.
More information in Polish here.
Paul Monty’s 1918 Vilnius Street Guide
Best Lithuanian Gymnasia Announced
The best schools are:
1. Klaipėda licėjus (took 1st place last year),
2. Panevėžys J. Balčikonis Gymnasium (2nd place last year),
3. Vilnius Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium (7th place last year).
A total of 360 gymnasia without entrance exams were sampled and assessed. The rating is based on the averaged final state examination performance by students last year including tests on Lithuanian language and literature, history, English, information technology, physics, chemistry, biology and geography. The best-scoring gymnasium received eight points and the worst zero.
The rating was also weighted with bonus points for 12th graders who received 100% on their final exams and the number of students who went on to win government-paid places at universities. Bonus points were also given for the number of students who went on to study at institutions of higher learning abroad.
More information in Lithuanian here.
Site Selected in Vilnius for Commemorating Righteous Gentiles
In a letter to the Lithuanian Jewish Community dated April 28, 2018, Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius agreed to a 2016 proposal by the LJC to erect a statue to honor rescuers of Jews from the Holocaust in the garden of the Church of the Missionaries near Ona Šimaitė street, renamed after the prolific rescuer several years ago. The walled-in garden area of the church was the site of the final selection of Jews for life and death after the liquidation of the Vilnius ghetto. Šimašius said an alternate site, Rūdninkų square inside the former ghetto, was no longer a fruitful option.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community thanks all parties for inter-agency cooperation in solving an issue of national importance, commemorating those who risked life and family to rescue Jews.
To mark Victory Day we invite you to come honor those who fought fascism and the victims of World War II at 12 noon on May 8 at the Sudervės road Jewish cemetery in Vilnius. A bus will carry passengers there from Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius and departs at 11:10 A.M. For more information and to register call (8 5) 2613 003 or email info@lzb.lt
Lag baOmer Celebration
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Vilnius Jewish Religious Community invite you to come celebrate Lag baOmer, the day of the unity of the Jewish people, at the fort next to the A1 Vilnius-Kaunas freeway 1 kilometer from Grigiškės at 6:00 P.M. on May 3. There will be music, a barbecue and activities for children including trampolines, face painting and shooting bows and arrows.
Public Notice of Convocation of Lithuanian Jewish Community Regular Reporting Conference
At 12 noon on May 28, 2018, at the Lithuanian Jewish Community building located at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius, a regular reporting conference (hereinafter conference) of the Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC, corporate code 190722117) will take place.
The conference agenda includes:
1. Election of conference chairperson and secretary;
2. Result of independent audit of LJC, report on financial and other activities in 2017;
3) Election of members of LJC board of executives.
Representatives of all LJC association members (delegates) are invited to participate at the conference. More detailed information concerning the conference are accessible at the LJC, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius. For more information you may contact info@lzb.lt or call 261 3003.
Kaunas Jewish Community Invites You to Unveiling of Mapu Statue
A presentation and ceremony to unveil a statue to commemorate Abraham Mapu will be held at 5:00 P.M. on May 3 in Kaunas. The ceremony will take place in the courtyard of the Ars et Mundus art gallery located at A. Mapu street no. 20 in Kaunas. The sculptor was Martynas Gaubas. The event will include Jewish music. Ars et Mundus is the author of the project and Artkomas and the Kaunas Jewish Community are partners.
Vilnius Ghetto Diary makes Top 7 List of Lithuanian Books for April
The Vilnius Ghetto Diary of Yitzhak Rudashevski was named as one of the top 7 books for April on the 15min.lt website’s monthly list. The diary was recently published in Lithuanian translation with the original Yiddish provided as the second half of the book. Other works recommended on the list included Lithuanian translations of Abraham B. Yehoshua’s Mar Mani [Mr. Mani], Isabel Allende’s Más allá del invierno [In the midst of Winter] and others, and original Lithuanian works such as Marius Burokas’s latest book of poetry Švarus buvimas [Clean Existence].
Monument to Jan Zwartendijk in Kaunas
Kaunas deputy mayor Simonas Kairys Thursday announced the plan to commemorate Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk who rescued Jews during World War II.
Following four years of work between partners in Lithuania and the Netherlands, the deputy mayor said: “This day is truly extraordinary. Kaunas is like an outdoor museum city with many strata and signs testifying to different time periods. I think Kaunas has demonstrated many times over the city is strong when its content is strong and when the city is able to show that content to others.
Honorable Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk issued so-called Curaçao end-visas to complement Japanese transit visas Chiune Sugihara issued Jews in Kaunas during the early days of World War II.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
Press Release
LITHUANIAN CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 25, 2018, Lithuania
Personal Stories from the Holocaust Told in New Website
“’We drank tea using the observational method: we would hang a sugar cube by a string and sip tea while looking at it. This didn’t make the tea taste any sweeter, but it cheered us up,’ wrote Tamara Lazersonaite in her memoirs. She was the daughter of professor Vladimir Lazersonas, the pioneer of clinical psychology in Lithuania. Professor Lazersonas and his family drank their ostensibly sweetened tea in the Kovno Ghetto.” This is how the Lazersonas family, who were part of Kaunas intelligentsia before the start of World War II, are introduced in the new website stumblingstones.lt.
The pioneer of clinical psychology in Lithuania and his wife, doctor Regina Lazersoniene-Safochinskaite were incarcerated in the Kovno Ghetto. They both later died in concentration camps. Only two of the three Lazersonas children survived the Holocaust.
Lithuanian National Library Hosts Lecture “The Problem of Holocaust Memory in Current Lithuanian Historiography”
The Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas invites the public to a lecture in Lithuanian called “The Problem of Holocaust Memory in Current Lithuanian Historiography” by Klaipėda University professor Hektoras Vitkus at 5:30 P.M. on April 26.
Holocaust studies are expanding constantly at academic institutions in different countries. This topic has also received attention from scholars working in different disciplines in Lithuania and sometimes becomes the topic of public discussion. Even so, the question remains of how much scholarly attention is being devoted to the problem of Holocaust memory in Lithuania. This lecture will discuss the specific and topical issue of the place Holocaust memory occupies in current-day Lithuanian historiography.
Dr. Vitkus will examine the following questions: what concepts of Holocaust memory exist in contemporary Lithuanian historiography and what are their connection to global theoretical approaches to Holocaust memory? Has Holocaust memory research become an integral part of Holocaust historiography in Lithuania? Is there firm foundation for claiming Holocaust research and methodologies for such research are not yet being taken seriously by Lithuanian historians and at the current time independent studies remain exclusively in the scholarly fields of sociology and psychology?
Everyone is invited to the lecture which will be held in Lithuanian.
Old Užupis Jewish Cemetery Renovation Proposals
The Vilnius municipality is preparing proposals for renovating the old Užupis Jewish cemetery in Vilnius. The municipality’s planning agency Vilnius Plan has hired architect Victoria Sideraitė-Alon for this purpose and she has performed an examination of the territory and has provided proposals on how best to showcase fragments of headstones desecrated by the Soviets.
Sideraitė-Alon’s creative group (Samuel Bak is the author of the main symbol, A. Šimanauskas is the creator/designer, A. Perelmuter is the Israeli architect and consultant) has proposed a project called Arch, which was unanimously approved by an international advisory group on heritage issues established at the Lithuanian Jewish Community and by artists and intellectuals including P. Morkus, M. Ivaškevičius, S. Beržinis, S. Valius and by the Jewish Religious Community and the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry.
The Arch project proposal has not received the approval of the Vilnius Plan agency, which instead proposed a different project to commemorate the road blazed through the cemetery during the Soviet era, actually more of a ditch, called Kirkuto alley, but without any monument carrying a deeper semantic or emotional content. Instead, the alternate proposal is for arranging the headstones and fragments, more or less appearing now as stairs, in an artificial layer of soil above the parking lot where they are now housed to create the effect of a small “Jewish” graveyard there.
Public Notice
The Lithuanian Jewish Community has learned from media reports Kalev (Calev) Krelin, who was born and lived in Moscow, is carrying on activities in Lithuania presenting himself as Chief Rabbi of Lithuania, or at least he is being presented as such.
We would like to inform the public the office of chief rabbi was abolished several years ago as the hiring of new rabbis was taking place, and Kalev Krelin was never appointed to that office. At the current time there are no contractual ties between this person and the LJC or the Lithuanian Jewish Religious Community, and we give notice Kalev Krelin has no legal basis to act in the name of the LJC. Likewise, the LJC is not responsible in any way for agreements made by this person nor for the legal consequences arising from such agreements.