Press release, lrytas.lt

Representatives and technical coordinators from Lithuania’s Turto Bankas, which administers and maintains real estate belonging to the state, the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe have arrived at joint solutions for renovating Vilnius’s Palace of Sports as a conference and cultural venue and preserving the territory of the old Šnipiškės Jewish cemetery which surrounds the building.

The reached basic agreement on solutions for reconstruction and maintaining the cemetery territory.

The decisions made regarding the technical project are based on a protocol signed by Lithuanian Government and the Lithuanian Jewish Community in 2009 on heritage protection for the site and a buffer zone and on reconstructing the former sports arena for conferences and other cultural events. The Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe approved the protocol in 2016.

The publishing house of Vilnius University has published a new book called “Nesuk į kelią iš takelio. Lietuvos žydų religinės ir filosofinės minties paveldo trajektorijomis” [Don’t Quit the Path for the Road: Along the Trajectories of the Litvak Religious and Philosophical Thought Heritage]. The Lithuanian-language book contains extracts from the texts of the Vilna Gaon, Chaim of Volozhin, Grozdinsky, Israel Salanter and Emmanuel Levinas with commentaries.

Dr. Aušra Pažėraitė has written a bit about her book especially for the www.lzb.lt website:

“It has long been my dream to write a book talking about, examining and interpreting the heritage of Litvak religious and philosophical thinking. … [Among others,] another problem which arose was the time-period and the range of what Litvak means. I mean the problem of geographical boundaries in which we can look for the Litvak heritage, which has changed drastically over history, and it happens that the same historical figures are assigned to Lithuania’s, Poland’s and Russia’s legacy… So I chose a narrower problem, the Litvak-ness which is associated with religious tradition, historically connected with the Vilna Gaon and his circle of followers. So this allowed for choosing a specific perspective which would allow me to connect schools of thought otherwise hard to reconcile: the Western understanding of religion which is still forming in the modern period, which seems to so many people self-evident… i.e., between the written sacred texts and the oral texts, the traditional of passing traditions on orally. …”

The book is available at the Vilnius University bookstore, at the Versmė chain of bookshops and on the internet sites patogupirkti.lt, knygos.lt and humanitas.lt

You’re invited to a presentation of the adventure novel the Gaon Code at 6:00 P.M. on November 20 at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. The novel stems from a Lithuanian man’s desire to demonstrate the significance of Litvaks in Lithuanian and world history. The book presents in an easily readable form numerous facts and stories about the Jewish communities of Vilnius, Želva and Ukmergė and about their contributions to learning and history.

Author Rytis Sabas and Lithuanian historian and journalist Rimvydas Valatka will discuss the book and its inspiration.

Rytis Sabas is also a journalist from Vilnius interested in history. He has travelled extensively including in Bosnia. Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The book is an adventure including a plethora of historical fact and some light fiction. While it attempts to show the grandeur and influence of the Vilna Gaon, it’s intended more to showcase Litvak history and the Litvak heritage. It’s aimed at outsiders, readers who might not know much about Lithuanian Jews.

The book is written in Lithuanian and the presentation will be conducted in Lithuanian. For more information, call 8 678 81 514.