The Raimondas Savickas Picture Gallery invites you to an evening of poetry and painting at the gallery, located at Basanavičiaus street no. 11 in Vilnius, at 6:00 P.M. on Friday, December 7. Rūta Eidukaitytė will sing and play guitar as well.
Second Hanukkah Candle
The Vilnius Jewish Religious Community invites you to come light the second candle of Hanukkah together with the Rajka Klezmer Orekstar at 6:30 P.M. on December 3 at the Choral Synagogue, Pylimo street no. 39, Vilnius.
Commemorating the Death of Danielius Dolskis (1891-1931)
The Kaunas Jewish Community will commemorate the anniversary of the death of Danielis Dolskis with a prayer at the Žaliakalnis Jewish cemetery in Kaunas at 5:00 P.M. on December 3, 2018. We invite those who so desire to join in and honor the memory of the founder of popular Lithuanian stage music.
Opening of Exhibit “Mission: Lithuanian Citizens. Siberia”
The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to come to a meeting/lecture/discussion/exhibit opening at 6:00 P.M. on December 4. The LJC is located at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius. The “Mission: Lithuanian Citizens. Siberia” event is dedicated to discussing the deportations from Lithuania in June of 1941. The official telling of the story of the deportations often seems to exclude the multi-ethnic nature of the deportees and their diversity of views and beliefs. They were only united in the fact the occupational regime which swept into power didn’t approve of them.
Dr. Violeta Davoliūtė will give a presentation based on her research. LJC board member Daumantas Todesas, Vilnius Jewish Public Library director Žilvinas Beliauskas and Lithuanian Department of Ethnic Minorities director Dr. Vida Montvydaitė will also speak on the topic of the event.
An exhibit of photographs will officially open at the same time.
Hanukkah Celebration for Children
The Dubi Mishpokha, Dubi and Ilan Clubs of the Lithuanian Jewish Community invite children and parents to a Hanukkah celebration at 12 noon on December 2, 2018, at the Future Live room located at Upės street no. 2 in Vilnius.
Please register by 11:30 A.M. on November 30 by sending an email to sofja@lzb.lt or by calling Sofja at 867257450, Alina at 869522959 or Margarita at 861800577.
See you there!
This Hanukkah is Our 30th Birthday
This Hanukkah marks the 30th birthday of the restoration of the Lithuanian Jewish Community. The LJC will celebrate Hanukkah on December 9 at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Vilnius with a concert by Gefilte Drive from Israel. Tickets cost 15 euros. For more information and to register, call 467881514 or stop by the LJC at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius. Students can get a discount by calling Amit at 869227326 and senior citizens who are clients of the LJC’s Social Programs Department can as well by calling Žana at 867881514.
We hope to see you there!
Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community to Celebrate Birthday with Hanukkah
The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community is celebrating its 30th anniversary together with Hanukkah on December 8 at the Šiauliai Arena Conference Hall located at Jablonskio street no. 16. Tickets cost 10 euros for adults, 5 for senior citizens and children under 13 are to be admitted free of charge. Those wishing to attend should contact Antonina at the Community by November 30.
Hanukkah in Panevėžys
The Panevėžys Jewish Community invites you to come celebrate Hanukkah. At 4:00 P.M. on December 2 Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky will light the menorah on Independence Square in Panevėžys, after which the Panevėžys Jewish Community at Ramygalos street no. 18 will host a celebration including food, games and dancing.
Visit the Lost Shtetlakh, the Jewish Towns in Lithuania
The popular Lithuanian travel page www.lietuvon.lt has been updated and now includes a new group of sites, the shtetlakh, towns which had a large Jewish population before the Holocaust.
The Lithuanian-language internet site is promising to continuously update local and regional Jewish heritage tourist routes (at https://www.lietuvon.lt/stetlai) which are being developed and advertised by local municipalities. tourism information centers, museums, libraries and individual travel enthusiasts.
This project is the fruit of a joint-venture between the Lithuanian Jewish Community and www.lietuvon.lt author Karolis Žukauskas.
The project receives support from the Lithuanian Cultural Heritage Department and the Goodwill Foundation.
Wordless Shadow Theater
The Ilan Club invites members and interested parties to attend a workshop on shadow theater at 1:00 P.M. on November 25. Those interested should send an email to sofja@lzb.lt or call 867257540.
The goal of the workshop is to create a short play based on traditional Jewish tales. The play will be expressed in light and shadow and without words. The director believes the lack of verbal content will enhance perception of the environment and people around us, thus increasing empathy and fostering new kinds of creativity. Participants at the workshop will discuss the play and will make scenography and shadow puppets with help from artists. Together with the director and actors, participants will explore different ways for characters to express themselves without using words.
Simon Karczmar Exhibit at Vilna Gaon Museum
The Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum at Naugarduko street no. 10/2 in Vilnius will open an exhibit of paintings and prints by Simon Karczmar at 5:30 P.M. on November 22. The exhibit will run till January 21, 2019.
Karczmar was born in 1903 and died in 1982. His most productive period came later in life. He studied art in Paris as a young man but worked in the fur industry rather than as a professional artist. At the age of 57 he developed an allergy to fur and his wife encouraged him to return to making art. As a member of an artists’ colony in Safed, Israel, to which he moved in 1962, Karzcmar painted daily life in the Dieveniškės (Diveishok, Jevenishok) shtetl. His work has been exhibited in the USA, Canada, Israel and Mexico but never before in Lithuania. A month ago the School of Business and Technology in Dieveniškės hosted the exhibit. Karczmar’s son Natan came from Israel to attend and said the exhibit in Vilnius fulfills an old family dream.
Jewish Veterans Commemoration
A ceremony to commemorate Lithuanian Jewish veterans is to be held at the Jewish Cemetery in Kaunas at 4:30 P.M. on November 23. Organizers include the Kaunas Jewish Community, the Sugihara Foundation/Diplomats for Life and the Kovo 11-osios Gatvė Association. For more information send an email to kaminskas.raimundas@gmail.com or call +370 680 53 495
Second Hanukkah Candle
The Vilnius Jewish Religious Community invites you to attend the lighting of the second Hanukkah candle December 3, at Vincas Kudirka Square in Vilnius at 5:30 P.M., and again at 6:30 P.M. at the Choral Synagogue.
Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community Holds Anniversary Concert
The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community invites the public to a concert to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the restoration of the organization to be held at 7:00 P.M. on December 3 at the Polifonija chamber concert hall at Aušros alley no. 15 in Šiauliai.
Šiauliai State Drama Theater and film actress Jūratė Budriūnaitė, teacher and composer Vadimas Kamrazeris and their daughter Sofija will participate.
Exhibit: Simon Karczmar: From Juvenishki to Safed
Dear friends of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum in Vilnius,
We kindly invite you to the opening of the exhibition “Simon Karczmar: from Juvenishki to Safed” on November 22 at 17:30 in the museum’s Tolerance Center (Naugarduko street no. 10/2, Vilnius).
Hanukkah Coming Soon
Hanukkah is coming soon and several events are already scheduled. On December 2 there will be a Hanukkah celebration for children at 12 noon at I Future Live, located at Upės street no. 9 in Vilnius. A Hanukkah celebration for the whole family will be held at the Radisson Blu Hotel at Konstitucijos prospect no. 20 on December 9, with music by the Israeli neo-klezmer band Gefilte Drive. More information to follow.
Retrospective of Photography by Antanas Sutkus
The National Art Gallery Friday opened a retrospective called Cosmos on the work of photographer Antanas Sutkus. It is a comprehensive presentation of the 79-year-old artist’s work and the first exhibit of his work to appear in over a decade. It includes more than 300 items.
Photographer Gintaras Česonis, one of the curators of the Cosmos exhibit, said Sutkus is an exceptional figure in Lithuanian photography.
“Sutkus is extraordinarily important for all time. More than one generation has grown up with his work. It’s not a simple matter to take a fresh look at it. When people delve into Sutkus’s archives many come to the conclusion his creative work cannot be comprehended, it is the entire universe. And this is probably where the name Cosmos came from for the exhibit, the totality of unbounded things and time,” Česonis commented.
Curator Thomas Schirmböck said Sutkus is one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century.
An album of Sutkus’s photos of Vilnius and Kaunas ghetto inmates called In Memoriam with the text in English was published two years ago.
The exhibit will run till January 13.
Evening to Remember Pianist Nadežda Dukstulskaitė
The Lithuanian Jewish Community will host an evening to remember the pianist and teacher Nadežda Dukstulskaitė at 6:00 P.M. on Thursday, November 15. The evening will feature memories and performances by Rafailas Karpis, Robertas Bekionis, Dmitri Bulybanko and the Ąžuolai men’s choir. Dr. Leonidas Melnikas will moderate.
Nadežda Dukstulskaitė (1912-1978) was born into the family of a musician. In 1918 the family moved to Kaunas where from the age of 7 Nadežda attended private lessons in piano under Herbeck-Hansen. She was graduated from the Stern Conservatory in Berlin in 1926 and from 1926 to 1929 studied at the High Musical School in Berlin.
She was a concert master and soloist on Kaunas and Vilnius radio from 1929 to 1953. She toured Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Sweden in 1934, 1937 and 1938 and performed works by M. K. Čiurlionis, Juozas Naujalis, Stasys Šimkus, Juozas Tallat-Kelpša, Juozas Gruodis and Juozas Karosas.
She escaped the Kaunas ghetto towards the end of World War II with help from the writer Kazys Binkis and his wife Sofija. She hid in different locations around Kaunas for several days and then walked to Vilnius. From 1953 to 1959 she was the concert master of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic’s philharmonic, and from 1959 to 1978 concert master and piano teacher for the Ąžuoliukas choir.
Her students included the opera singer Vladimiras Prudnikovas and the pianists Robertas Bekionis, Dmitri Bulybenko and Leonidas Melnikas.
Celebrating Vidmantė Jasukaitytė’s 70th Birthday
The Lithuanian Writers Union is holding a birthday party for the late writer Vidmantė Jasukaitytė from 5:30 P.M. to 7:00 P.M. on Thursday, November 8, 2018. The event will be held at the Writers Club located at K. Sirvydo street no. 6 in Vilnius and is open and free to the public. The program includes a reading of Jasukaitytė’s “The Sixth Commandmant: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Subačiaus Street. The Ghetto” based on her experience living at the former HKP Nazi labor camp in Vilnius, set to music and performed by Arkadijus Gotesmanas on percussion and Dimitrijus Golovanovas on piano. Jasukaitytė’s daughter Kunigunda, an artist in her own right, and a number of notable Lithuanian writers and poets are to attend and speak.
Renaissance Photo Exhibit at Pakruojis Wooden Synagogue
by Vilijus Žagrakalys (pictured above)
Renaissance, an exhibition of photographs at the Pakruojis synagogue from November 10 to 30, 2018, with the opening at 5:00 P.M. on November 9.
Everything that’s old comes back around. The 19th century was the period when photography began and flourished. The application of various techniques for forming an image on a plate progressed from wet-plate collodion to silver compound gelatin which dominated until the advent of digital cameras. The silver process gave rise to a surge in photography studios which captured portraits of their time in single and group portraiture. All sorts of visual photo albums were made. Silver gelatin emulsion was relatively easy to get and made this possible.
At around the same time the platinum method was discovered, dated at 1873 in the history of photography. William Willis patented the method in 1881. He received official awards for this in Great Britain in 1885. The method was popular until World War I, when platinum acquired greater value, and the technique gradually dropped out of use.
Around 1970 the technique was revived in the USA. It is now known as the king of the printing process.
When I began to get interested in photography techniques, I attempted to print several photographs. After much experimentation I seized upon the platinum/palladium method. The fragments of photographs in this exhibition were printed using this method.