Announcements

Attend Unveiling of Plaque Commemorating 1927 Lithuanian Table Tennis Champions in Kaunas

makabi-tenisininkai1927

Photo of 1927 Lithuanian table tennis champions. Sitting: O.Gurvičaitė, champion in women’s group. Standing from right: I. Šimensas (first place), I. Keperis (second place), B. Podzelneris (director of the table tennis section of Makabi), I. Godas (third place), Ch. Šimensas (fifth place).

A plaque will be unveiled at 2:00 P.M. on Tuesday, November 29, on the western façade of the A. Martinaitis Art School in Kaunas located at Šv. Gertrūdos street no. 33 with the inscription:

“In this building on March 12 and 13, 1927, the first LITHUANIAN TABLE TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIP took place, organized by the Makabi athletics club.”

Makabi Athletics Club
Lithuanian Table Tennis Association
Kaunas Jewish Community

Children’s Chess Tournament

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Rositsan Elite Chess and Checkers Club invite you to a children’s chess tournament at 11:00 A.M. on November 26, 2016.

The tournament is dedicated to the memory of former world champion Michailis Talis.

The tournament will take place at the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius.

Tournament director: Ričardas Fichmanas

For further information and to register, please contact:

info@metbor.lt
+3706 5543556

Charity Christmas Fair

Kalėdų labdaros mugė

The International Women’s Association of Vilnius invited guests to a prayer brunch at the embassy of the United Kingdom Thursday. Here for the fourteenth time an international charity Christmas fair was presented. This year the charity fair’s organizing committee is led by a member of the International Women’s Association of Vilnius, wife of the British consul Ethel Cushing. She said preparations for the fair are a long process demanding a lot of energy and time which takes almost an entire year.

This year the Bagel Shop was invited to participate.

An International Food Fair will also cause a stir at the Old Town Square in Vilnius December 3 with booths representing Turkey, the Czech Republic, India, Ireland, Japan, Israel, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and the International Women’s Association of Vilnius.

Full story in Lithuanian here.
More information in English here.

Vilnius: In Search of the Jerusalem of Lithuania

The Lithuanian Jewish Community this week hosted the launch of the second corrected and expanded edition of Irina Guzenberg and Genrikh Agranovsky’s book in Russian about Jewish Vilna.

The new edition has been reorganized with a new structure and better indices of names and sites.

Author Irina Guzenberg has done exhaustive research to provide authentic street names from the period and the book is graced with attractive period photographs. Much of the history is unknown to modern residents of the Lithuanian capital, which was not very Lithuanian before the 1950s. Before the war one heard Yiddish, Polish and Russian spoken on the street.

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World Union of Jewish Students Nominates LJC Student Union for Awards

The World Union of Jewish Students has nominated the Lithuanian Union of Jewish Students of the Lithuanian Jewish Community for awards in two categories.

Lithuanian Union of Jewish Students director Amit Belaitė is up for one of the awards, and says her friends and colleagues in the Union need to learn more about Jewish life and Jewish traditions. She said Jewish students in Lithuania have been cut off from many Jewish things, including how to celebrate Sabbath, largely because Jewishness was forced into hiding in Lithuania after the Holocaust. She added there is a revival underway in Lithuania, including of Jewish holidays our great-grandparents celebrated, and said now there is a great deal of communication with Litvaks of the same age as Union members living around the world who have not lost their traditions.

amit

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LJC and Dalia Kutkaitė Artistic Gymnastics Academy Invite Girls to Gymnastics Class

Dear girls and parents,

We are pleased to announce the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Dalia Kutkaitė Artistic Gymnastics Academy are holding girls’ gymnastics classes! Girls aged 5 to 6 are invited to attend and learn this graceful and charming sport. Gymnastics activities are to begin at 3:00 P.M. on December 2. The class lasts one hour.

Equipment needed: tight shirts, tight tights and white stockings. You will also need a warm sweater (because the hall is cool). Hair should be worn tied on top of the head so it doesn’t interfere.

Please register: natalijade@gmail.com

Chess Tournament Dedicated to the Late Alvydas Rajunčius

The chess tournament to be held by the Rositsan and Maccabi Chess Club at 11:00 A.M. on Sunday, November 20, will be dedicated to the memory of Alvydas Rajunčius.

The tournament will take place at the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius. Tournament director: FIDE master Boris Rositsan.

For more information and to register:

info@metbor.lt
+3706 5543556

Letter to Rabbi Krinsky

Dear Rabbi Krinsky,

As you may know, the Vilnius Choral Synagogue has been closed for repairs and we need to confirm some very basic rules we will need you to respect after the synagogue is reopened.

We would like you to know that your refusal to follow these rules will unfortunately force us to not allow you or anyone else disobeying these rules to enter the building and participate in the services.

The rules in question are as follows:

1. Vilnius Choral Synagogue is run by rabbis who have been officially appointed by the Lithuanian Jewish Community.

2. Any religious activities taking place in the synagogue must be approved by the official Community rabbis and any other activities must be approved by the chairman of the Vilnius Religious Jewish Community.

3. Anyone who wishes to organize a party, wedding ceremony, brit milah, lecture, class, meal, speech, bar/bat mitzvah or any other event has to confirm it with an official Community rabbi and receive approval ahead of time.

4. Any food or food products must be inspected and approved by an official Community rabbi before being brought into the synagogue.

5. Any prayer books or learning material/books for studying must be approved by an official Community rabbi before being brought into the synagogue.

6. Every Jew is welcome to come to the synagogue and participate in our services, but no one may conduct any services or any part of a service without the permission of the official Community rabbis. Only Community rabbis have the right to decide on the procedures of aliyos, hazakos, yorzeit and all tefillim-related issues according to established Lithuanian custom.

Any person who does not respect these basic rules cannot be a part of the synagogue (just as in all other synagogues).

We kindly ask you to acknowledge that you are ready to follow the aforementioned rules of the synagogue. Regrettably, until you do so, we have no other choice but to bar your entry to the synagogue.

Thank you for your understanding, and we await your reply.

Signed,
Rabbi Krelin
Rabbi Izakson

Come Celebrate Sabbath This Evening at the LJC

The Gesher Club and the Kaveret Club for young families at the Lithuanian Jewish Community invite you to attend a warm and cozy Sabbath celebration at 7:00 P.M. on November 11 on the third floor of the LJC at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius. For more information please contact Žana Skudovičienė at telephone number +370 678 815 14.

Shabbat Project at the LJC

Press release, November 9, 2016

For the third year in a row Jewish communities around the world will host challa baking events and Sabbath celebrations. More than 1,006 cities around the world are participating in this enchanting event, and this year Vilnius is one of them. The Lithuanian Jewish Community officially joins the Shabbat Project Thursday, November 10, when we will host an evening of baking that special Jewish bread called challa with Community members and friends.

Challa is a special bread baked for Sabbath and holidays among Jewish families. The process of making and breaking challa is deeply rooted in tradition and religion. The word’s primary meaning is that of loaf or bun, as recorded in the Book of Numbers or Bamidbar in the Old Testament or Tanakh, and was one of the first commandments given the Israelites as they were preparing to leave the wilderness for the Promised Land: “Ye shall offer up a cake of the first of your dough for an heave offering: as ye do the heave offering of the threshing floor, so shall ye heave it.” (Numbers 15:20)

The event will feature a brief history of the Sabbath, music and hymns, kneading the dough together and baking traditional Sabbath challa. Ester Izakson, the wife of the rabbi of Vilnius, will lead the event. She will present the ceremony of separating a portion of the dough for the cohen, the haFrashat khalva, one of the three commandments incumbent of women in Judaism.

We’ll begin activating the yeast at 6:00 P.M. on November 10 at the Bagel Shop Café, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius. The Lithuanian Cultural Council is supporting the event.

The event will be attended by Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky with family members, foreign ambassadors and guests.

For more information, contact Dovilė Rūkaitė, director of projects for the Lithuanian Jewish community, at projects@lzb.lt

Three Braids, Three Challas, Three Generations

fa-chala-project

The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to participate in the international Shabbos project!

We’re inviting all Community members to come bake challa and celebrate the Sabbath together on November 10 in Vilnius!

Jewish communities around the world will be baking traditional challa bread on November 10. This fun project has been going on for three years and includes Jewish communities in 65 countries. This is the first time the Lithuanian Jewish Community is participating. We’re inviting all regional communities, families, mothers and daughters to gather together and bake challa together in their own communities. Grandmothers, mothers, granddaughters, we’re hoping you will all come knead challa together at one table!

Registration is required because space is limited. goo.gl/fEmzp4

Program:

6:00 P.M. We activate the yeast and knead the dough

6:30 P.M. The story of the Sabbath

7:00 P.M. We braid the challa

7:30 P.M. We bake the challa

More information available here.

A Mehaye Winter Camp 2016!

Dear parents, please register now for your children to attend the annual A Mehaye winter camp, organized every winter by the Lithuanian Jewish Community with the financial support of the Joint Distribution Committee. Children and youngsters aged 7 to 17 are invited to come, have fun, make new friends, see old ones and learn while they’re at it! The camp is scheduled for December 24 to 30.

To register, or for more information, please contact:

soniakaplan@mail.ru
telephone +37067257540

Romantic Fantasies Concert

German-Israeli pianist Dina Yoffe and German-Israeli violinist Michael Vaiman will perform a concert called Romantic Fantasies at 7:00 P.M., November 8, at the Vaidila Theater, Jakšto street no. 9, Vilnius. The concert will include works by Brahms, Liszt, Ravel and others.

Klaidas Navickas Paper Cutout Exhibition

Klaido Navicko karpinių paroda

An event to open an exhibition of Klaidas Navickas’s paper cutout works will be held at the LJC on the third floor at 6:00 P.M. on November 17.

Klaidas Navickas was born in Raseiniai, Lithuania, on November 30, 1962. He currently lives in Grigiškės and is an attorney and public servant. He began cutting paper into art in 1988. He has been a member of the Union of Lithuanian Folk Artists since 1991. In 2005 he was recognized as a working artist and in 2009 as a master of traditional arts and crafts. He has held personal exhibits of his paper cutouts at Expo 2005 in Japan; Linz, Austria; Expo 2010 in China; Gdansk and Warsaw; Philadelphia; Mogilev Podolsky, Ukraine; Moscow and St. Petersburg and Minsk. He has done over ten exhibitions of his work in Lithuania. A permanent exhibit has been on display in his workshop in Vilnius since 2003. He has published two catalogs of his cutouts.

karp-300x296

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New Holocaust Memorial at Seventh Fort in Kaunas

Kaune atidengtas ženklas Holokausto aukoms

Kauno.diena.lt

A new Holocaust memorial was unveiled a the Seventh Fort in Kaunas. About 3,000 people were murdered at the Seventh Fort in July, 1941. Human remains were discovered at the largely abandoned site several years ago. The remains were turned over to the Kaunas municipality but have now been reburied at the mass grave site.

The Star of David stone monument appears to be springing up from the earth. It was made by Alfonsas Vaura. The sculpture is accompanied by three lights which come on at night. The project was financed by the Kaunas municipality.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Long Awaited Changes Come to Sugihara House

Sugihara House

Long-awaited renovation work has finally begun at the museum set up at the house and office of Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara in Kaunas, Lithuania. So far renovation is going on inside the house. The façade also requires repair, but there are reports there are problems in financing all the repairs needed at this point in time.

The second floor of Sugihara House is currently being refurbished and all exhibits have been placed on the ground floor temporarily. The ground floor houses the diplomat’s office. When the second floor is finished, there will be more exhibit space drawing even more visitors from Japan, Lithuania and around the world fascinated by this man who rescued so many Jews from the Holocaust.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Beata Nicholson and Rafailas Karpis Talk about Jewish Lithuania

B. Nicholson ir R. Karpis atskleis, kokia yra žydiškoji Lietuva

“Empty, boarded up, gone, pulled up the roots,” these are the words opera soloist Rafailas Karpis used to describe extant Jewish synagogues in Lithuania following a trip he made through northern Lithuania with Beata Nicholson, a noted Lithuanian journalist and television personality who produces a cooking show called “Keliauk ir ragauk. Lietuva” [Travel and Taste: Lithuania]. Karpis said the wooden synagogues of Lithuania used as store houses or sports gyms during the Soviet era are still being used as such in many locations. But not at the synagogue complex in Joniškis, rebuilt at the initiative of the local communities, where Beata and Rafailas will spend most of their time during the upcoming episode.

Full article in Lithuanian here.

Book about Kupiškis Jewish Community

Author Aušra Jonušytė with Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon. Photo: Rasa Pakalkienė (LŽ)

Most of the Jewish communities in Lithuanian towns and villages were annihilated during World War II. The town of Kupiškis was no different. People of this ethnicity were murdered, but not removed from memory. This is demonstrated in the book “Kupiškio žydų bendruomenė. Praeities ir dabarties sąsajos” [The Kupiškis Jewish Community: Connections between Past and Present] presented at the Vilnius Jewish Public Library. The event by the Vilnius Jewish Public Library and the Kupiškis Ethnographic Museum launched the book by Aušra Jonušytė. She told the audience she considered with how to combine regional history work and student-teacher activities, and how to present the material in a way appropriate for children when she compiled the book.

Full story in Lithuanian here.