Sujjot (Ashkenazic Sukkos) begins at 5:13 P.M. at sunset today, Monday, October 6, and ends at sunset 7, 8 or 9 days later, depending on your location and disposition.
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 Temple times.
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletic Club is holding their annual Maccabiada this October 19 and you’re invited.
Competitions include 3-on-3 basketball with 5 teams competing, volleyball with 6 teams, table tennis in men’s and women’s matches and men’s and women’s badminton. Participation is free. Makabi requests you register before October 15. To gesiter and for more information, call +370 687 83005.
Program:
11:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. Badminton and basketball
11:00 A.M. to 2:30 P.M. Table tennis
1:00 P.M. to 2:30 P.M. Volleyball
3:30 P.M. to 5:00 P.M. Lunch at the Crowne Plaza Hotel restaurant
Time: 11:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., Sunday, Ovtober 19
Place: Taurus Sports School, Žygio street no. 46, Vilnius
The Lithuanian Jewish Community is shocked by the events in Manchester and expresses our deepest condolences to the families of the victims and to the entire British Jewish community.
“This brital attack again reminds us of the danger which is posed by the ever-deepening hate and anti-Semitism which is taking root in society/ Eighty years ago European Jews experienced how that ends” more than 96% of Lithuanian Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Evil often begins from lesser things which might seem insignificant at the time–apatjy, averted glamces–so we must be especially vigilant right now to insure history doesn’t repeat itself,” Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said.
We pray for the victims and wish strength and resolution to everyone battling hate.
The Sabbath begins at 6:59 P.M. on Friday, September 26, and concludes at 7:58 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 6:41 P.M. and completed before sunset at 6:59 P.M. Yom Kippur begins at 6:36 P.M. on Wednesday, October 1, and ends at 7:45 P.M. Thursday, October 2. Sukkot begins at 6:24 P.M. on Monday, October 6.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Bnei Maskilim progressive Judaism association invite you to come mark Yom Kippur together at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. Cantor Daniel Zekhry from the rabbinical studies program of the Abraham Geiger College will lead the services. Everyone is welcome but registration is required by sending an email to viljamas@lzb.lt.
Schedule:
October 1
6:30 P.M. Kol Nidre
October 2
10:00 A.M. Torah reading
5:00 P.M. Yizkor
5:15 P.M. Neila
6:30 P.M. Shofar
This Wednesday the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius begins observing Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
Prayer services:
October 1
6:30 P.M. Kol Nidre
7:00 P.M. Maariv
October 2
10:00 A.M. Shacharit
12:00 noon Yizkor
12:30 P.M. Musaf
5:45 P.M. Mincha
6:30 P.M. Neila
7:45 P.M. Maariv
While the café is undergoing reconstruction and will change its name to its address, Pylimo 4, when it reopens, the kitchen is still operating and many have enjoyed its special Sabbath menu. Now the café is offering challa to order for pickup on Fridays. The regular price is 7 euros per loaf, and if you want to donate to the operation, then 10 euros. Your donation will insure an earlier opening of the venue. Orders should be placed by 8:00 P.M. on Thursday each week. Payment and pickups can be done at the café from 4:00 P.M. till 7:00 P.M. on Fridays. To place your order, send an email to gut.shabbos.vilnius@gmail.com. A gut shabes!
For the fifth time now the International Nehama Lifshitz Song Contest will bring together highly talented young performers from around Lithuania and the world. The contest named after the songstress from Lithuania called the Jewish nightingale encourages young perfomers to popularize Jewish song, to discover diverse musical compositions and to spread artistic cooperation internationally.
The competition is open to people from the age of 10 to 35 with performances over four evenings of classical Jewish melodies, works in Hebrew and Yiddish imparting centuries of stories, emotions and culture. This year the organizers are doing something new, with vocal mastery lessons provided by professor Claudia Visca of the Vienna Music and Performance Arts University and voice teacher Sofia Mazar from the Jerusalem Music and Dance Academy.
The public is invited to attend the performances. The Yiddish song contest takes place starting at 3:00 P.M. on October 26 at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. The Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater will host the remaining evenings as well as voice lessons from October 27 to 30. Audience members will be treated to a concert by the finalists as the jury decides on a winner. All performances will be free and open to the public. Stay tuned for more information.
As part of the on-going Joseph Achron music festival, the piano duet of Justas Sherveniko ir Johan Randvere will perform a musical homage to the composers Mikalojus Čiurlionis and Maurice Ravel on the 150th anniversary of their births at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius starting at 4:00 P.M. on Sundaym October 5. The program includes works by Čiurlionis, Ravel, Schubert and Mendelssohn.
For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.
As on every first Sunday in October, people will gather to commemorate those who were incarcerated in the ghetto and murdered during the Holocaust in the Švenčionys region in southwest Lithuania. The gathering takes place at the city park where the ghetto once operated, and at the mass grave in Platumai village in the Švenčionėliai aldermansjip at what is generally called the polygon. You are invited to attend at 11:00 A.M. on Sunday, October 5.
Program:
11:00 A.M. – 11:30 A.M. Commemoration of victims at the Menorah statue in the city park;
12:30 P.M. Commemoration at the monument to the victims at the mass murder site in Platumai village.
Moshe Shapiro, chairman
Švenčionys Regional Jewish Community
The Sabbath begins at 7:07 P.M. on Friday, September 26, and concludes at 7:58 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 6:49 P.M. and completed before sunset at 7:07 P.M. Thursday, September 25, is Tzom Gedaliah, the day of fasting. Yom Kippur begins at 6:36 P.M. on Wednesday, October 1, and ends at 7:45 P.M. Thursday, October 2.
The following protest is being called by people who describe themselves as the cultural community of Lithuanian for tomorrow, September 25, to protest the minister of culture proposed and delgated by the Nemuno Aušra party. Details and petition link below.
Dear people of culture,
We are protesting. We categorically oppose the Government’s shocking decision to hand the post of minister of culture over to the Nemuno Aušra party.
We believe that:
Culture cannot be used a tool for political deal-making. The Lithuanian Culture Ministry is not a token which can be exchanged for short-term political gain;
Culture is our memory, the foundation of democratic values, society’s guarantor of resilience to propaganda;
To give this ministry over to a political force characterized by populism, anti-Semitic and pro-Russian rhetoric is dangerous, both to the cultural sector and to society as a whole.
We urge:
The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to come honor the approximately 200,000 :Lithuanian Holocaust victims at Ponar on the outskirts of Vilnius this Thursday, September 25. Transportation to and from Ponar is available, register by sending an email to info@lzb.lt.The bus will leace from the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius at 12:45 {.M. sharp, and will not wait for latecomers.
Time: ~1:00 P.M., Thursday, September 25
Place: Ponar Memorial Complex, Agrastų street no. 15A, Vilnius
The Sabbath begins at 7:25 P.M. on Friday, September 19, and concludes at 8:16 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 7:07 P.M. and completed before sunset at 7:25 P.M. Rosh Hashanah begins at 6:59 P.M. on Monday and ends at 8:05 P.M. Wednesday. Tuesday, September 23, is Remembrance Day for Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide.
Rosh Hashanah begins at 6:59 P.M. on Monday and ends at 8:05 P.M. Wednesday. The new Jewish year is 5786. The Lithuanian Jewish Community will celebrate Rosh Hashanah at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius.
Schedule:
Monday
6:30 P.M. Mincha and maariv prayers
Tuesday
10:00 A.M. Shacharit prayer
12:00 noon Blowing of the shofar
12:15 P.M. Musaf with Shmuel Yaatom
2:30 P.M. Mincha
6:00 P.M. Blowing of the shofar
8:10 O,N, Maariv
The city of Vilnius, the Jewish Culture and Information Center and the Vilnius Museum have set up 7 stands marking the path along which Jews were marched to their murder at Ponar. The project is meant to commemorate Lithuania’s Day of Remembrance of Jewish Victims of Genocide on September 23. The stands contain photographs by Holocaust survivor Akiva Gershater with texts by historian Zigmas Vitkus.
Jews were taken to be shot at Ponar, either marched or driven in trucks, along what is now Savanorių prospect. up the hill to Ponar and then along what was then the Grodno highway.
The organizers invite the public to march this route, starting at the Hyacinth Chapel at the intersection of Konarskio street and Jovaro sreet, where boundary markers marking the city limits once stood, and where now the first stand is located.
The march will conclude at the Ponar Memorial Complex where historian and Holocaust researcher Milda Jakulytė-Vasil will conclude with a speech about the mass murder site.
THe march begins at the aforementioned intersection at 10:00 A.M. on Sunday, September čą. The route is about 10 or 7 miles long and should take from 2.5 to 3 hours to complete. A portion of the trek is through forest. Milda Jakulytė-Vasil will speak at Ponar for 30 to 45 minutes. The return trip can be made by train at the Ponar train station or by city bus.
Marchers should wear comfortable walking shoes and are asked to register here.
Natalja Cheifec continues her internet discussion club with a special lesson the High Holy Days at 6:00 P.M. on September 18. To participate, register here.
Happy 5786!
To mark Lithuania’s Jewish Victims of Genocide Remembrance Day, Audra Girijotė will give a presentation about Dovydas Matishohu Lipmanas at the synagogue in Čekiškė, Lithuania (Tsaykishok in Yiddish). Lipman was perhaps the most famous writer from the small town, and focused on the history of the Jewish community there, in Kaunas, Žemaitija and in Lithuania in general. He also wrote about the Vilna Gaon and was a frequent contributor to Yiddish periodicals. Born in 1888 in the village of Nemakščiai in the Raseiniai district, Lipman lived in and around Čekiškė from 1925 to his murder. He bought and ran a pharmacy there while writing a number of books. He was a qualified pharmacist with a degree from Dorpat (Tartu). He was murdered just outside the village in late July, 1941, by Stanislovas Gudavičius, a commander of local Lithuanian white-armbanders, according to Lithuanian historian Alfredas Rukšėnas.
Audra Girijotė is a writer and journalist who has been researching the life and death of Dovydas Lipmanas over the last several years.
Time: 1:00 P.M., September 23
Place: Čekiškė synagogue, Lašišos street no. 21, Čekiškė, Kaunas district
JewishGen yizkor for Tsaykishok here.
More biographical information in Lithuanian and English here.
Avner Korin and wife Olga Goroveya from Jaifa will speak about the situation in Israel, the war with Hamas, bombardment by Hezbollah in Lebanon, and will answer questions from the audience about the general atmosphere in Israel and what’s happening on the ground. Registration is ewquired by sending an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt.
Time: 6:30 P.M, Wednesday, September 17
Place: LJC, Vilnius
September 23 is a national day of mourning, marking the significance of the loss of Lithuanian Jewry in the Holocaust and the loss to Lithuanian society.
The village of Subačius, the shtetl Subotch, had a large Jewish population engaged in wholesale, shopkeeping, running bars and taverns and all sorts of other business endeavors. Almost all the Jews there were exterminated in 1941 in the Ilčiūnai Forest, also known as Lapkalnis, two kilometers from Subačius. From 80 to 300 Jews from Kupiškis andr Subačius were murdered there, according to different sources. A monument marks their mass grave. There were Righteous Gentiles there as well who saved Jews.
The ceremony to mark Jewish Genocide Remembrance Day in Subačius will include a descendamt of one family who rescued Jews, the Markevičiuses. The ceremony includes a presentation of the book “Kupiškėnai – žydų gelbėtojai” [Kupiškis Residents Who Rescued Jews] put together by historian and Kupiškis Museum specialist Aušra Jonušytė. Students from the Kupiškis Art School will provide a musical component.
Time: 11:00 A.M., September 23
Place: Subačius House of Culture, Aukštaičių street no. 14, Subačius