February 13, BNS–The Person of Tolerance of the Year for 2015 was named Saturday at a ceremony in Kaunas, the Sugihara Foundation informed BNS. Chiune Sugihara’s son Nobuki presented the award to the recipient. Recipients usually receive a commemorative medal designed by the sculptor Edmundas Frėjus and a certificate. The award is made annually to people who through their words and deeds stand against xenophobia and anti-Semitism and the persecution of members of minority ethnicities, religions and schools of thought, and who speak out against violence and radicalism in Lithuanian public life. This year the Sugihara Foundation had a field of five candidates to choose from, including businessman Valdas Balčiūnas, Lithuanian Lutheran bishop Mindaugas Sabutis, editor and journalist Rimvydas Valatka, psychologist Paulius Skruibis and author and activist Sergejus Kanovičius.

A message from the Human Rights Monitoring Institute in Lithuania:

Dear readers,

Our warm holiday wishes to you for the upcoming holidays. We wish you deep relaxation, a rest from worry and work, good time spent with your family and time to reflect on the last year and thing about what you expect from the new year.

Thank you for being with us, for taking an interest in human rights, for supporting us and inspiring us to ever new work. We invite you to remember the most interesting moments in the field of human rights in Lithuania, Europe and the world in 2015. See here.

The eighth human rights review covering the year 2013-2014 has been published and presented to the President’s Office and Parliament. You may read it on our website in English:

http://pasidomek.lt./en/

My dear brothers and sisters, in Israel and around the world: at Hanukkah we stand around the lights, watch as they glow and sing together “Ma’oz Tzur Yeshu’ati,” a song that tells about the many challenges that have risen against the Jewish people in the past. We celebrate the survival of our people and our faith against all odds. We celebrate the freedom that was won in these days and that we enjoy today with Israel as national home for the Jewish people. It is no coincidence that the symbol of the government of Israel is the menorah, the symbol of Jewish independence that lights our path. In each generation we must find that path; to reinforce the bonds between Jews across the world; to share together, to hold high the torch of freedom; to bring lights where there is darkness, just as it was for the heroic Macabbee, the light of the menorah inspired us all.

Today, hatred, incitement and terrorism threaten the whole world. In the face of these threats, we need to be firm. We need to be firm and strong, like a rock, like ma’oz tzur [the rock of ages] in our beliefs in freedom, in justice, in the values of our tradition and of democracy. So this year, as we gather with our families and our communities and look at the wonderful lights, it is my prayer that we will be reminded of the bonds that we all share and the important role we have– we all have–of bringing a light unto the nations. Our thoughts at this time are of course with those who will be celebrating with heavy heart, those injured and the families who have lost loved ones in the wave of terror that has struck in Israel and around the world. To them especially and to all the Jewish people, I wish a very, very happy Hanukkah! Shalom from Jerusalem. God bless all of you. Happy, happy Hanukkah.

Watch the greeting here.

I hope the miracle of Hanukkah will guide you and your loved ones always. On this Hanukkah I address the members of the community and invite all, old and young, to come together and for every member, health permitting, to participate in community activities, to make their positive contribution to the life of the community, for the Lithuanian Jewish Community to grow stronger, for the people to stand in solidarity, and for there to be less petty accusations and rumors.

Happy holiday of light, of the victory of the Maccabees! I wish you happiness, peace and good health!

Congratulations, Ilja Bereznickas, we’re proud of you!

The Lithuanian Jewish Community congratulates Ilja Bereznickas on receiving the important Golden Gunnar Award at the Fredrikstad Animation Festival 2015 in Norway. Ilja Bereznickas received the award for lifetime achievements and contributions to the Nordic and Baltic animation industry.

Ilja, we’re proud of you! We wish you much inspiration and success! Mazl tov!

The Lithuanian Jewish Community congratulates Vytautas Višinskis, the
director of the Goodwill Fund, and Lina Saulėnaitė on the occasion of
their wedding. We wish you much love for each other, concord, faithfulness
and happiness!

Dear community members,

Greetings to you on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I wish all of you health and happiness in your families! I sincerely wish you human warmth, that you would always be happy in your families and that you would come visit the community more often, and feel a deeper connection with the community.

This year now ending, 5775, was very complicated for our community and for me, but I think the unpleasant experience as we now have no rabbi will make our community stronger and will bear us good fruit in the future. As the major events over the last year, I would point to Lithuanian prime minister Algirdas Butkevičius’s visit to Israel where at the highest level, the president, prime minister and members of the Knesset of Israel said very clearly they have no complaints regarding our community, and on the contrary, the cooperation of the Lithuanian Government with Israel and with the Lithuanian Jewish Community was presented very positively.

Many times over at all levels the contributions made by the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Lithuania and in improving the country’s relations with Israel were underlined. In wishing you happy holiday spirits, I would like to say the Jews of the community are very active and work hard in all fields, from the preservation of the cultural and religious heritage, to organizing activities for children and youth, in the field of human rights and in everyday but nonetheless vital work with the elderly at the Social Center.

The regional communities are also working very intensively. I can say Litvak life has revived, and our events we have prepared for this fall show that only a well-organized team of people can achieve so much. We are publishing newsletters in Russian and Lithuanian. We have our own webpage which in three languages provide timely insight to matters of concern for the entire community as well as global Jewish issues, and everyone who wants to find out how the Lithuanian Jewish Community is doing has access to that information.

Let’s be happy that the community is harmonious, growing, stable, and that we have so many young people. The entire year I have worked with the community I have felt your great support, my friends, and your desire for me to continue, and now I hope the community will be able to select the best rabbi of those who have presented themselves as candidates for working with us, one who not only provides religious knowledge, but who will love his people and try to help them in trouble and in happiness.

Passover is the major Jewish spring holiday celebrated in remembrance of the Jews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt. One often hears the name “Pesakh” used interchangeably for the same holiday, a word which, not coincidentally, refers to the Christian holiday of Easter in different forms in different European languages and cultures. Pesakh means “to pass over,” hence the English name of the holiday, Passover. In Hebrew and Aramaic there is another closely related word which sounds almost the same and means “I will have mercy, I will have compassion.” Both meanings come together in the Old Testament Book of Exodus, where the Jewish children are “passed over” by the angel of death and do not suffer the fate of the Egyptian children, demonstrating the mercy of the Most High.

Passover is first of all a holiday for teaching children Jewish history and culture. The Passover Seder is a dinner where the two prerequisite Passover offerings are savored: matzo bread, and bitter herbs. The matzo reminds us the Jews fleeing Egypt had no time to wait for their bread to rise, and the bitter herbs are tasted to remind us of the bitterness of slavery during the time of the Jews’ sojourn in Egypt.

There are special rules which apply when Passover begins on the Sabbath, as it does this year, on the evening of April 3. The holiday lasts for eight days.