The Šiauliai Jewish Community will commemorate Israelis murdered by Hamas and show support for Israel in the war by lighting candles in a ceremony at 5:15 P.M. on October 25 in front of the Community building at Višinskio street no. 24 in Šiauliai. Your participation would be appreciated highly.
This Sunday’s semi-regular quiz will be dedicated to hope. For the second week Israel is at war with the Hamas terrorist organization. Although many expect victory for Israel, many also expect it to be long in coming. This illustrates well the millennia-long history of the Jews which has been victorious but also very painful.
We invite everyone to come take part in the quiz, but also to spend some time together and talk. As usual, actor, writer and journalist Arkadijus Vinokuras will be master of ceremonies. The event will be streamed on facebook.
Time: 2:00 P.M., Sunday, October 22
Location: Bagel Shop Café
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Jewish song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh invite you to a concert including performances by Rafailas Karpis with Darius Mažintas, Arkadijus Gotesmanas with Michailas Bolšunas and students from the Sholem Aleichem school.
All funds collected will go to Israeli victims of the brutal war underway through the agency of the Litvak community in Israel.
Time: 3:00 P.M., Sunday, October 29
Location: the dance theater at the Mykolas Konstantinas Čiurlionis Art School, Kosciuškos street no. 11, Vilnius
To register or find out more, contact Larisa Vyšniauskienė by calling+370 687 79309.
Direct donations for victims of the war in Israel may be made through the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s bank account LT097044060000907953 by indicating “MES KARTU” in the line or window for showing the purpose of the bank transfer.
When terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 the world witnessed acts of incomprehensible brutality where women, children, the disabled and the elderly were taken hostage and murdered, taken hostage and used as human shields, and publicly tortured and executed.
We say with no reservations at all that Israel is a sovereign state. No one has the right to attack Israel, to invade Israel’s territory and to murder the people of Israel. There can be no justification nor mercy of any kind for the murderers.
Today, 50 years later, the words of beloved Israeli prime minister Golda Meir sound prophetic: we had a secret weapon in the war: there was no alternative. Again Israel is fighting for survival.
This brutal war is especially painful to the members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, there is no Jewish family in Lithuania whose members haven’t been touched by these terrific events. Our close relatives are fighting on the front lines, healing the wounded, rescuing people buried in rubble, helping those who are stuck and who could die. We are extremely proud of them.
Our thoughts and hearts are with our parents, brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren and friends who remain in Israel. With every person fighting for our historical homeland. With everyone who is experiencing the horror and loss.
Unfortunately it isn’t just our relatives in Israel who have found themselves in danger, but also in Lithuania. In the country where we were born, grew up and work, the country which we love, whose citizens we are, anti-Semitism is spreading, not just on the social media and at protests, but from the podium at the Lithuanian parliament, and even children are being attacked: they are being threatened and hurt on purpose. Yesterday a Bolt taxi driver of dark complexion who didn’t speak Lithuanian asked a minor, a child, what his ethnicity was, and when he found out his passenger was Jewish, he refused to take him to school. This is certainly not the only and not the worst incident, but it’s very illustrative of the situation.
These kinds of incidents make our community feel unsafe, but we are concentrated and unified, we are unified both by our thousands of years of history, but also by the future.
We are inn close cooperation with the Lithuanian Police Department and other security structures. Ee are in continual contact with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Lithuanian embassy to Israel and international Jewish organizations. We are exchanging information and sharing data.
Despite the shock of it all, we are striving to help Lithuanian citizens stranded in Israel as well, and to help Israeli citizens in Lithuania to fly home. We are providing information, consulting, helping to provide solutions to the unexpected problems which have come up all at once.
We thank Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda, speaker of parliament Viktorija Čmilyte-Nielsen and prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė for the firm support for Israel and the Lithuanian Jewish Community they have expressed. We are very encouraged Lithuania has condemned unequivocally the actions of the terrorists and has stood for the right and just side.
We are extraordinarily grateful to the people of Lithuania as well who have sent us their messages of condolence and support and who are praying for our brothers and sisters taken hostage by the terrorists. At the same time we caution people should assess critically the information they receive and only share news from official Israeli institutions and agencies.
Am Yisral khai. The people of Israel live.
Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community
The Sabbath begins at 6:08 P.M. on Friday, October 13, and concludes at 7:17 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
Schools, kindergartens and universities across Lithuania were closed in the early afternoon Friday as numerous emails in Russian and Lithuanian were received claiming bombs had been placed at these locations. This followed the same threats made to schools in Klaipėda Thursday as Lithuanian military and security forces were scheduled to carry out drills on the marine liquified natural gas terminal located there. Police spokesmen said the same threats were made in Latvia and Estonia over previous days. They said the threatening emails in Lithuania were in Russian with some in Lithuanian and contained two separate demands: ransom for “de-mining” the schools, and political demands Lithuania stop supporting the Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.
The Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius decided several days ago to cancel in-school classes Friday and to conduct lessons via internet instead because Hamas had called upon supporters to attack Jewish institutions around the world on October 13. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman told Lithuanian media the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius was closed and almost all staff at the LJC were working from home. All events and programs scheduled at the LJC have been cancelled for now, according to LJC executive director Michailas Segal. Chairwoman Kukliansky said the regional Jewish communities had all been apprised of growing security concerns.
Lithuanian police had started making regular patrols outside the Sholem Aleichem school and the Choral Synagogue since the Hamas attack on southern Israel last Saturday.
Update: Around 1,500 schools and educational institutions received bomb threats again on Monday, October 16.
On November 5, 1943, the Kinder Aktion, one of the most brutal Holocaust crimes perpetrated in Lithuania, was carried out in the Šiauliai ghetto. The mass murder operation aimed at Jewish children took 725 of them and they were sent to Auschwitz in cattle cars where they were murdered. The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Šiauliai City and Šiauliai Regional Jewish Communities invite you to remember and commemorate the victims of this crime.
The event begins at 12:00 noon on November 5 at the stone monument on the corner of Trakų and Ežero streets marking the location of one of the former gates to the ghetto. At 12:30 P.M. a procession leads from there to the Chaim Frankel villa. At 1:00 P.M. there will be a ceremony at the villa to remember the children murdered. The villa is located at Vilniaus street no. 74 in Šiauliai. This will include the opening of a joint exhibition by the Šiauliai City Jewish Community and Yad Vashem museum of photographs of the child victims of the Kinder Aktion.
Please note: Those wishing to attend the commemoration on November 5 are asked to register by sending an e-mail to info@lzb.lt.
Renowned blues and rock guitarist Yuri Naumov, originally from Sverdlovsk but transplanted to Novosibirsk and since 1990 based in the United States, will perform at the Jascha Heifetz Hall at the Lithuanian Jewish Community on October 21.
An accomplished song writer and composer, he gained fame in January of 1983 when he formed the band Prokhodnoy Dvor, which included Vladimir Zotov on drums and Oleg Kurokhtin on guitar. After the band issued a bootleg tape, they became popular in the USSR, and the KGB forced Naumov to leave Novosibirsk Medical University for “the promulgation of decadent Western values.” He initially sought refuge in Leningrad and Moscow. In 1990 Naumov moved to New York. Naumov plays a unique 9-string guitar custom-built for him by famous violin maker Sergei Nozdrin in the 1980s. He used to tour Russia once or twice a year.
Of Italian and Jewish origins, Naumov’s rock ballads have long been considered classics, including the Tale of Karl, King of Rock and Roll; Stanislov Theater and Starry Night. Many call him the greatest Soviet and greatest Russian bluesman ever.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Saturday, October 21
Location: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius
Tickets available at www.bilietai.lt.
Maccabi World Union Emergency Campaign
The Maccabi movement is asking for your help in supporting the Israeli communities affected by the horrible terror attacks on Southern Israel. We will make Kfar Maccabiah, the facilities of the movement home, available immediately to hundreds of citizens that currently await evacuation from the Gaza area.
We will:
-Accommodate 300 people from the affected areas.
-Accommodate 100 family members of injured soldiers & citizens who are hospitalized in Sheba Medical Center.
-Transform Kfar Maccabiah Basketball Hall into an overflow shelter for 200 evacuees.
Our estimated cost per day is $60,000 USD ($100 per person, per day). No gift is too small.
Any level of support will begin helping Israelis immediately.
Please give generously for those in real need.
Michael Siegal, president, MWU
Amir Peled, chairman, MWU
Amir Gissin, CEO, MWU
The Lithuanian Academy of Sciences and the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities invite you to attend an international conference called “The Intellectual Heritage of the Jews of Vilnius” on October 10 and 11 at the Lithuanian Academy located at Gedimino prospect no. 3 in Vilnius.
According to the Lithuanian Academy’s press release:
“Thanks to the support of the Research Council of Lithuania, we were able to invite such world-renowned experts in Jewish history and culture as Israel Bartal, David Fishman, David Roskies, Benjamin Brown, Alex Lubotzky, Marcin Wodzinski, Jon Seligman, Avner Holtzman, Tsvia Walden, Mordechai Zalkin and others.
“The conference will also feature presentations by prominent Lithuanian scholars: Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, Mindaugas Kvietkauskas, Lara Lempertienė, Jurgita Verbickienė and doctoral student Saulė Valiūnaitė.”
A program is available in English here.
For more information, visit the Lithuanian Academy’s website here.
Hamas in Gaza has launched what they hope will spark a new, general Palestinian intifida against the state of Israel in the West Bank and Jerusalem as well. Over 300 Israelis including security forces but a majority of civilians have been killed inside Israel, about 1,600 people have been wounded and around 52 soldiers and civilians have been taken prisoner and taken into Gaza, including at least one UK citizen. Palestinian sources claim over 750 hostages have been taken into Gaza from Israel. In Ashkelon near the border with Gaza a synagogue and hospital were struck by Palestinian rockets.
The invasion began on Saturday with thousands of rockets sent into Israel from Gaza, with a few volleys now coming from Hezbollah locations inside Lebanon targeting northern Israel. Israel responded with aerial bombardment of selected sites inside Gaza City. Hamas reported more than 256 dead and 1,700 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas claimed the sneak attack was in response to Israeli attacks and provocations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a message which has resonated in the Islamic world with spontaneous pro-Palestinian protests erupting in Turkey, Iran and other countries. Military strategists say Israel is facing what is perhaps a three- or four-front war: Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and a potential attempt by Syria to retake the Golan Heights. Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has declared a state of war against Hamas, and indicated it might be a long war. The Israeli defense minister said the coming hostilities will be ruthless and will degrade Hamas’s military capability forever.
We invite you to attend a gathering to show that we stand with Israel.
Time: 6:00 P.M. tomorrow, Monday, October 9
Location: Cathedral Square, Vilnius
There are some reports that extremists are planning attacks in Lithuania as well, so be careful and if you know anything about this, please report it to the police and the Lithuanian Jewish Community.
The Sabbath begins at 6:25 P.M. on Friday, October 6, and concludes at 7:34 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
The Choral Synagogue in Vilnius will provide the following prayer services for Shmini Atzeret and Simchat Torah:
October 6
6:30 P.M. Kabalat Shabat and Hag Shmini
October 7
10:00 A.M. Shacharit
11:00 A.M. Megilat Kohelet (reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes)
12:00 noon Yizkor
7:40 Simchat Torah eve with hakafot dance/procession
October 8
10:00 A.M. Shacharit with hakafot
11:00 A.M. Torah reading
The Israeli ballet troupe Jerusalem Ballet will perform the world premiere of their “Memento: Franceska Mann’s Last Dance at Auschwitz” on November 26 in Vilnius. The performance is based on historical facts and inspired by the tragic story of Jewish ballerina Franceska Mann, who is said to have killed a Nazi guard during the Holocaust.
Time: 6:00 P.M., November 26
Location: Avia Solutions Group Arena, Vilnius
Tickets available here.
Please note: Lithuanian Jewish Community members and friends will receive a 20% discount on the ticket price. To obtain the discount code, fill out the form here.
The pianist, composer and rising star on the jazz stage Uriel Herman is set to perform for the first time in the Baltic states.
He will perform works from his third and latest album Different Eyes released this summer.
Time: 7:00 P.M., October 14
Location: Organum Concert Hall, Savanorių prospect no. 1, Vilnius
Tickets available at bilietai.lt and bilietai.organum.lt
The 15th of Tishrei, which fell on Friday, September 29 this year, is when Sukkot, one of the more important Jewish holidays, begins. Jewish families pitch a tent or build a booth where every day, except on the Sabbath, they “dwell,” meaning they spend some time at the table inside, or spend the night in warmer climes. This is meant to remind us of the 40 years the Hebrew people dwelt in the desert following the exodus from Egypt living in tents.
The ŽydiškiPašnekesiai discussion club led by writer and journalist Arkadijus Vinokuras is inviting participants to come inside the traditional sukka this Wednesday, October 4, to talk about the Jewish holidays in the fall season.
“Sukkot is a week-long Jewish holiday which is celebrated five days after Yom Kippur. Sukkot celebrates the harvest and recalls God’s miraculous protection to the children of Israel after the exodus from Egypt. We celebrate Sukkot in a booth called a sukka decorated with vegetation and by handling the four species of vegetation,” Vinokuras said.
The famous Telzh (Tels, Telšiai, Telz) Yeshiva, a cultural heritage site, has reopened with a new public use. Last week a branch of the Alka Museum opened its doors inside the yeshiva building. The new museum space housed in the Jewish school will feature and protect the Jewish material heritage there.
The Telzh Yeshiva exhibit there was set up based on the yizkor Sefer Ṭelz (Sefer Ṭelz (Liṭa): matsevet zikaron li-ḳehilah ḳedoshah) compiled by Yitzhak Alperowitz and published in Israel in 1984. In 2022 the books was translated into Lithuanian as “Telšiai. Atminties knyga” [Telzh: Book of Memory], opening the door for Lithuanian speakers to discover the traces of Jewish life in the small town and find out more about its history.
The Sabbath begins at 6:43 P.M. on Friday, September 29, and concludes at 7:51 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
Sukkot or Sukkos beings at 6:43 P.M. in Vilnius on Friday, September 29, 2023.
The festival of Sukkot–literally meaning booths, tents, tabernacles–is celebrated for seven days in Israel and eight days in the Diaspora, starting on the fifteenth day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei. It is one of the three festivals during which Jewish men were required to make pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the times of the Holy Temple.
This year the first day of the week-long holiday coincides with the Sabbath, adding another layer to the observance of taking the lulav, or the four species, and dwelling in the sukka or booth is postponed till after the conclusion of the Sabbath. For more information, see here.
The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community located at Višinskio street no. 24 in Šiauliai will host a public presentation of the short book “Gyvenimo istorijos. Žydų gelbėtojai” [Life Stories: Jewish Rescuers] as the final events in the Laptai Gallery’s project “Cultural Sketches of Litvaks” at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, October 3.
This is the third short book in the “Gyvenimo istorijos” series and focuses on testimonies from eye-witnesses and relatives about the Righteous Gentiles who rescued Jews from the Holocaust in the Šiauliai region.
The presentation will include the reading of passages by Šiauliai State Drama Theater actress Jūratė Budriūnaitė, recollections by living witnesses and their relatives and musical accompaniment performed by Arijus Ivaškevičius. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call (8) (41) 200-642 (which is equivalent to +370 41 200 642 on mobile phones).