Announcements

Table Tennis

Table Tennis

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is sponsoring ping-pong classes for beginners and skilled players. Classes/matches for adults will take place Sundays from 2:00 to 4:00 P.M. at the Community, and from Monday to Friday from 5:00 to 8:00 P.M. at the Simonas Daukantas pre-gymnasium in Vilnius. Classes for primary school students will take place on Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:00 to 4:00 P.M. at the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium, as will classes for students from higher classes, on Mondays and Wednesdays from 4:00 to 5:00 P.M. For more information contact Rafael Gimelštein by telephone at 866283856 or Neta Alon at 862957005.

Kabbalat Shabat

Kabbalat Shabat

The next Kabbalat Shabat ceremony will be via internet on the zoom platform at 6:30 on Friday, February 25. To register contact viljamas@lzb.lt.

Acting Classes for Children

Acting Classes for Children

The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites your children to attend acting classes taught by the actresses Emilija and Elžbieta Latėnaite. Topics include improvisation, stage acting and performing entire plays before an audience. The first class is at 3:30 P.M. on March 1 at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. For more information and to register, contact Žana by email at zanas@sc.lzb.lt or call +370 67881514.

Sabbath Times

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 5:14 P.M. on Friday, February 18, and concludes at 6:30 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

Chess Classes for Children

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Rositsan and Maccabi Elite Chess and Checkers Club will hold classes to teach children chess from 5:30 to 6:30 P.M. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Virginijus Dumbrauskas will be the instructor. Registration is required by calling +370 676 07907. The classes will take place at the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius and by internet.

Israeli Dance Club Rekudim

The Israeli dance club Rekudim will meet on Sundays from 11:00 A.M. to 12 noon for beginners and from noon to 1:30 P.M. for more advanced dancers. Julija Patašnik will teach the classes. For more information call +370 569 60512.

Kabbalat Shabat with Rabbi Nathan Alfred

The Choral Synagogue in Vilnius will host a Kabbalat Shabat ceremony with Rabbi Nathan Alfred from Israel at 6:30 on February 18, followed by a Sabbath meal. To register contact Viljamas by telephone at 867250699 or write viljamas@lzb.lt

Sabbath Times

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 4:59 P.M. on Friday, February 11, and concludes at 6:16 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

Lithuanian Jewish Community Children’s Clubs

The LJC children’s club for our youngest members–Dubi Mishpakha if for those under 3 and Dubi for children aged 3 to 6–will resume February 15. Dubi Mishpakha will be held on Tuesdays and Fridays starting at 11:00 A.M. and Dubi on Sundays from 11:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. For more information call Alexandra Žitkauskienė-Khenkin at telephone number 370 672 50 599.

Šiauliai’s First Professional Photographer Reveals Interwar World

Šiauliai’s First Professional Photographer Reveals Interwar World

The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community is hosting an exhibit of photographs from their archive by Sošana Zaksaitė, the city’s first professional photographer. Zaksaitė’s photos capture Jewish life in Šiauliai before the Holocaust.

This is the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community’s second exhibit of Zaksaitė’s photography.

Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community chairman Sania Kerbelis says the current exhibit continues where the last one left off. The Community has a digitized collection of Zaksaitė’s work numbering around 300 photos.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Kabbalat Shabat

A Kabbalat Shabat ceremony will be held via internet under the tenets of Progressive Judaism at 6:30 P.M. on February 11. To register, write Viljamas at viljamas@lzb.lt

Sabbath Times

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 4:44 P.M. on Friday, February 4, and concludes at 6:03 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

Art Classes

Art Classes

The Raimondas Savickas School of Art and the Lithuanian Jewish Community invite you to attend art classes under the tutelage of Raimondas Savickas, including drawing, painting and art history basics. Color and form composition, still life, sketching, life-drawing–these are just some of the topics to be covered. Classes will be held on Sundays starting February 6. To register call 8 699 63 522 or send a letter to savickogalerija@gmail.com

Sergei Liser Exhibit Opens

Sergei Liser Exhibit Opens

The opening of an exhibition of paintings by Sergei Liser called “Išlikę indai” [Surviving Vessels] was held January 30 at the Bagel Shop Café at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius with the painter and his family, many friends and some famous artists. LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Vilnius Art Academy rector and teacher Ieva Skauronė and LJC programs director Žana Skudovičienė welcomed visitors at the event.

“Surviving Vessels is my second individual exhibit. It’s strange tales about the history of dishes where the fates of people as well as dishes are intertwined. Dishes, like people, change in appearance over time–they mature, grow old and die, they change color and form, they wear out,” Sergei Liser said. “But sometimes they become members of the family, preserving important memories and pass biographies and stories on to us. And for that, we love and honor them, even when they get grey and old, break down and become dysfunctional.”

The exhibit will run till February 28 and the paintings are available for purchase.

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Project “Young Leaders of the Jewish and Roma Communities for the Preservation of Historical Memory and Justice”

Project “Young Leaders of the Jewish and Roma Communities for the Preservation of Historical Memory and Justice”

The year 2021 reminded us all of the suffering and misfortune the people of Lithuania had to live through in the 20th century, finding themselves at the intersection of the interests of the world’s great powers. There were commemorations, conferences and exhibitions throughout Lithuania. Even so, we haven’t done all our homework to insure the preservation of historical memory and teaching the younger generation a deeper sense of history don’t merely become annual events, but an inalienable part of national politics where all institutions work towards a common goal in a coordinated way, so that the combined resources of the state and society work together according to a clear strategy.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Roma Social Center are beginning the implementation of a project called Young Leaders of the Jewish and Roma Communities for the Preservation of Historical Memory and Justice organized by Germany’s EVZ Foundation aimed at teaching the public the importance of the history of the Roma and Jewish communities with the goal of including and engaging the younger generation of both communities.

Do members of these communities feel safe living in their own country?

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Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe on Šnipiškės Cemetery

Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe on Šnipiškės Cemetery

PRESS RELEASE by the Committee for the Protection of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe
(CPJCE)
January 18, 2022

The Lithuanian Government reaffirms its commitment to follow CPJCE guidelines on future plans of the Sports Palace Building situated in the Snipiskes Jewish cemetery in Vilnius.

The future function of the existing Sports Palace Building was discussed at a meeting held in Vilnius on November 25, 2021, between first deputy chancellor Mr. Rolandas Krisciunas, accompanied by his working team, and Mrs. Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, together with Rabbi H. Gluck OBE and Rabbi Y. Schlesinger representing the CPJCE.

Rabbi Gluck pointed out that regardless what the future plans hold, the Government must respect the agreements signed between the Government and the CPJCE in 2009 and 2015 and therefore no movement of soil is allowed in the entire cemetery area, and the Government should continue to work hand-in-hand with CPJCE to ensure the safeguarding of the cemetery and other cemeteries in the framework of the halachic guidelines.

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Challenges of the Holocaust to Commemorative Culture and the Legal System

Challenges of the Holocaust to Commemorative Culture and the Legal System

Arkadijus Vinokuras will host a discussion on the topic “Challenges of the Holocaust to Commemorative Culture and the Legal System” in Lithuanian as part of the #ŽydiskiPašnekesai series of discussions at 5:00 P.M. on February 9. The discussion will likely include a streaming video available via the Community’s facebook page.

Sabbath Times

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 4:30 P.M. on Friday, January 28, and concludes at 5:50 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.