The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Bagel Shop Café are pleased to announce a kiosk serving authentic Israeli street fare will operate in the center of the park across the street from the LJC and café in central Vilnius, next to the Petras Cvirka statue. The plan is for it to keep serving the public until autumn. Stay tuned for more information.
The camp is for children and young adults aged 13 and above. In order to participate, applicants need permission from their parent, parents or legal guardian(s) and proof of payment by electronic transfer of funds. Please note that payments for the camp will not be refunded (although for unavoidable reasons beyond the power of the parents or applicant to stop, LJC will consider reasonable requests).
Payment information:
Recipient: Lithuanian Jewish Community
Corporation code: 190722117
Bank: SEB Bank
Account: LT097044060000907953
For: Scouting Camp 2021, child’s name and surname and which specific fee is being paid
For more information contact Viljamas at viljamas@lzb.lt or by telephone at+370 67250699
Registration form: https://forms.gle/66KHQmVpUXJJV9WbA
The Sabbath begins at 9:41 P.M. on Friday, June 25, and concludes at 11:32 P.M. on Saturday.
We all need to remember all of our innocent people who were murdered and will never return.
The Panevėžys Jewish Community has asked the Panevėžys regional administration to renew inscriptions on monuments and memorial plaques commemorating Jewish victims murdered in World War II. The inscription on the Ghetto Gates monument has already been renewed.
The Panevėžys Jewish Community is carrying out a project called “Let’s Maintain the Mass Murder Sites” to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust in Lithuania. We plan to visit all the mass murder sites in the Panevėžys district.
Through our work and contribution not only do we seek to remember the tragedy which began 80 years ago, but also to set an example for regional administration employees charged with maintaining Jewish mass murder sites and Jewish cemeteries under Lithuanian law. The area around the Kurganava mass murder site has been put in order this year, but saplings still need to be cut and the fence repaired.
The Panevėžys Jewish Community is grateful to our volunteers and staff, including Albertas and Virginija Savinčiai, Jurijus Grafmanas, Timūras Jerovickis, Borisas Marijampolskis, Ona Juospaitienė and others, for taking part in this project.
We are planning repair and upkeep next month as well, with Panevėžys Jewish Community members travelling to Žalioji forest, Ramygala, Raguva and other mass murder sites.
One of the most painful periods in Lithuania’s history began 80 years ago in the summer of 1941, the beginning of the Holocaust in this country. We lost hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens constituting a significant portion of the population of Lithuania’s cities and towns. The Lithuanian Jewish Community is holding a virtual discussion in Lithuanian on June 28 to mark this painful anniversary.
Participants:
• LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, attorney;
• Arūnas Bubnys, director of Lithuania’s Genocide Center;
• Saulius Sužiedėlis, professor emeritus, Millersville University;
• Justinas Žilinskas, writer, publicist and professor of the European Union Law Institute at Mykolas Romeris University;
• Vytautas Bruveris, writer and analyst, Lietuvos rytas newspaper;
• Paulius Gritėnas, philosopher, observer and member of the executive board of the Human Rights Monitoring Institute;
• Donatas Puslys, director of the media and democracy program, Vilnius Policy Analysis Institute.
Writer and director of the Šeduva Jewish Memorial Foundation Sergejus Kanovičius will moderate.
The discussion is scheduled for 7:00 P.M. on Monday, June 28. You can watch it live on the LJC facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/777981389558688/
Around 50 Jewish men were tortured and murdered at the Lietūkis autoservice lot in Kaunas on June 27, 1941. Randomly grabbed off the streets, they were beaten with crowbars and water hoses were used to burst their stomachs. The victims included day workers, students, merchants, a musician, former director of the Industry and Trade Department of the Lithuanian Finance Ministry Jurgis Štromas and others. Many of the victims and perpetrators remain nameless to this day.
We will commemorate the victims of the Lietūkis Garage massacre and the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust in Lithuania at 5:00 P.M. on June 28, 2021, at the monument to the victims located at Miško street no. 3 in Kaunas.
At 6:30 P.M. the same day we will unveil a new sign in remembrance of the victims at the Žaliakalnis Jewish cemetery, where it is believed they were buried.
The Kaunas Jewish Community and the city of Kaunas invite you to join us in remembering the innocent Jewish citizens of Lithuania who were murdered.
We would be grateful if you could announce your intention to attend by sending an email to ieva0102@yahoo.com
Gercas Žakas, chairman
Kaunas Jewish Community
Palanga
The Lithuanian Jewish Community, the Palanga municipality and the Klaipėda and Palanga Jewish Communities commemorated the beginning of the Holocaust in Lithuania with a ceremony at the stone commemorating victims in the Palanga Botanical Garden on June 22.
Gargždai
A procession called “Path of Memory 1941-2021” to mark the 80th anniversary of the onset of the Holocaust in Lithuania is to be held starting at noon on June 23. Participants are invited to assemble at the former synagogue located at Kvietinių street no. 3, next to the Minija movie theater, whence the procession will move to the Jewish mass murder site on Klaipėdos street next to the bus station, culminating in a commemorative ceremony there.
The Vilnius Jewish Public Library will premiere a film about Aleksandras Štromas called Laisvės Horizontai at 5:30 P.M. on Monday, June 21. The filmmakers Ona Bivenienė, Ilja Bereznickas and Saulius Sondeckis will be present. Seating is limited and prior registration is required. Send an email to info@vilnius-jewish-public-library.com or call (8-5) 219 77 48 before 5:00 P.M. to register. The library is located at Gedinimo prospect no. 24 in Vilnius, through the alley to the parking lot and find the first door on the right.
The Sabbath begins at 9:40 P.M. on Friday, June 18, and concludes at 11:32 on Saturday, June 19.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community is pleased to announce the our annual Amehaye summer camp for 2021:
June 28-July 2 Children aged 7-10 (day camp), register here;
July 5-July 9 Ages 10 to 13 (including overnight), register here;
August 2-August 6 Ages 14 to 17 (overnight), register here;
July 18-July 23 Jewish scouts (overnight).
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For more information send an email to amehaye2021@lzb.lt or call +370 601 46656.
by Victoria Sideraitė-Alon
The old Jewish cemetery in the Šnipiškės (Shnipishok) neighborhood in Vilnius wasn’t destroyed in a single day. Back at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, the remains of 700 Vilnius Jews buried there were exhumed and reburied in a different part of the same cemetery during construction in the surrounding area.
Later during the Soviet era during the mid-20th century when work went on to extend what is now Šeimyniškių street, encroaching again on the old Jewish cemetery, these 700 burials were again exhumed and sent to a different grave. They were rediscovered in 2003 during construction of apartment houses next to Vilnius’s King Mindaugas Bridge. At the time, Lithuanian Jewish Community chairman Simonas Alperavičius resolved to have these 700 reinterred at the still-operational Jewish cemetery on Sudervės road in Vilnius. The reburial ceremony was attended by LJC officials and rabbis. The new grave there was marked with four posts.
This Sabbath on June 4, 2012, begins in Vilnius and Vilnius district with the lighting of the candles at 9:27 P.M. and concludes at 11:13 P.M. on June 5.
“From Lazdijai to Hollywood: The Joseph Achron Phenomenon” is a lecture celebrating Joseph Achron’s 135th birthday.
Joseph Achron (or Akhron, 1886-1943), the violin prodigy and composer born in Lazdijai, Lithuania, charmed audiences in Warsaw, Grodno, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Kiev and other cities around Europe, and went on to play Carnegie Hall. Having achieved fame in New York and Los Angeles, he remains little known in Lithuania. A close friend of Jascha Heifetz and Arnold Schönberg, he was humble on stage. He composed his greatest hit, Hebrew Melody, in barely an half hour.
How did his religious family support the young virtuoso’s musical career? What did Tsar Nikolai’s mother present as a gift to Achron? What did Achron contribute to the creation of professional Jewish music? Find out the answers and other interesting matters in Kamilė Rupeikaitė’s lecture “From Lazdijai to Hollywood: The Joseph Achron Phenomenon” at 3:00 P.M. on May 25.
We invite you to a virtual Sabbath discussion at 7:00 P.M. on May 15 of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot or Shavuos, moderated by Vijamas Žitkauskas. We will discuss the significance and traditions of the Feast of Weeks as it is known in English. The discussion will be held in Russian and prior registration is required. Registration form here.
Jerusalem Day, Yom Yerushalaim, will be celebrated on May 9 and 10 this year in Israel. Vilnius, the Jerusalem of Lithuania, is also celebrating the day. The Israeli embassy in conjunction with the Lithuanian Theater, Music and Cinema Museum is staging an exhibit of contemporary international photography featuring the holy city called “Jerusalem as a City of Culture.” From May 6 to 9 beginning at 9:00 P.M. each evening the exhibit will be projected on the wall of the Salomėja Nėris Gymnaisum on Vilniaus street in the Vilnius Old Town. The exhibit features works by artists from around the world featuring the city of Jerusalem, its charm and spirit.
This project by Israeli artist Adi Yekutieli is part of the My Jerusalem project and will be demonstrated in cities around the world this year. It includes photography by Lithuania’s Giedrė Mikalauskaitė called “Spiritual Light of Jerusalem.”
A small, closed ceremony will be held at noon on May 7 to commemorate the victims of World War II at the Sudervės road Jewish cemetery in Vilnius. LJC chairwoman Fainia Kukliansky, LJC representatives and foreign diplomats are scheduled to attend a wreath-laying ceremony at monuments commemorating ghetto victims and lost children. Because of wide-spread fears of viral contamination the ceremony won’t be open to the public and no further official commemoration ceremony to mark Victory Day will be held in Vilnius this year.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community’s series of virtual Sabbath telebridges continues this Friday, May 7, at 8:00 P.M. with a Zoom meeting with Rabbi Nathan Alfred of the European Union for Progressive Judaism. To participate, register here.
Viljamas Žitkauskas and the Lithuanian Jewish Community invite you to attend a virtual Sabbath discussion called “The Road from Underground Fighters and Self-Defense Units to the Israeli Defense Forces” in Lithuanian starting at 7:00 P.M. on May 1 as Israel staggers from the Lag ba’Omer tragedy. Registration is required, click here.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community is offering training at our 2021 Madrich School for young people with Jewish roots who want to take part and become qualified camp counselors and supervisors for LJC camping and children’s events.
The curriculum includes:
* Knowledge of Judaism
* Educational activities
* Training on setting up camps
* Training for working with children
* Conflict resolution
* Many new topics
The training is intended for young people aged 15 and up.
Registration required by May 17, 2021. For more information, call +370 6788 1514. To register, click here.
LRT.lt
The Lithuanian Culture Institute and the Contemporary Arts Center in Vilnius are preparing to show a video documentary called “Jewish Vilnius in the Work of Artist Eglė Ridikaitė,” the Lithuanian Culture Institute announced in a press release.
The story directed by Mikas Žukauskas looks at the work of Lithuanian National Culture and Art Prize recipient Eglė Ridikaitė and at her artistic method of confronting difficult topics. Her cycle of paintings “We Are Guests” pictures fragments of the Great Synagogue in Vilnius uncovered by archaeologists and her sense of space within the razed synagogue. This is one of the rare cases where Lithuanian contemporary art addresses Jewish historical memory and heritage. Her works have drawn international attention.
The premiere of the short on April 28 will include a discussion titled “In Jewish Vilnius and Elsewhere: Contemporary Art and Historical Memory.” Participants will include professor of architecture Amnon Bar Or and the artist Dora Zlek Levy from Israel, Vilnius Museum director Rasa Antanavičiūtė and art history professor Adakhiar Zevi from Israel. Architecture historian Ūla Tornau, cultural attaché to the United Kingdom, will moderate.
Full story in Lithuanian here.