Heritage – Page 76 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

What Would Queen Esther Eat Today?

Esther, the star of the Purim story, is one of the bravest heroines for so many reasons–she not only strategized to save the Persian Jews from certain death (breaking social norms in doing so), but she also maintained a kosher diet as an undercover Jew in the Persian palace. Wait, what?

Legend has it that like many Jews today, Esther kept kosher by avoiding things like non-kosher meat, and instead enjoyed a plant-based diet full of fresh produce, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds. For those of you with eating restrictions, you know how hard it is to turn down foods that everyone else is noshing!

In the story of Purim, food and celebration are central to her strategic success. In order to earn the favor of her husband, King Ahasuerus, she hosted two impressive (and probably extremely delicious!) banquets that set the stage for her requests of the King to save the Jews of Persia.

After all these years, delicious food and drink–like hamantaschen, Haman’s fingers, and plenty of wine–are essential parts of the celebration of Queen Esther and Purim.

If you’d like to party like Esther this Purim, click here for recipes.

2016-03-23

Stories about Rabbis: Exhibit of Pastel Work

The Jewish Culture and Information Center’s Shofar Gallery (Mėsinių street no. 3, Vilnius) presented an exhibit of pastel works by Kęstutis Milkevičius called “Stories about Rabbis” March 17.

pAroda-rabinai

The collection on exhibit was formed at the initiative of the leader of the Kaunas Jewish religious community, Maushe Bairak. Artist Raimundas Majauskas commented on Milkevičius’s artworks:

“The old portraits of wise Jewish rabbis are suffused with time and come down to us from a modified Rembrandtesque chromatic environment. The artist is a master of line and composition. The individualized, artistically realistic works betraying a deep aesthetic foundation are part of the cultural and communal life of Kaunas and Lithuania.”

Litvak cultural heritage scholar Asia Gutermanaitė opened the exhibit. The opening including stories and interesting tales about rabbis. The exhibit will run until April 12.

2016-03-18

Goodwill Fund Granted Greater Freedom to Spend

March 17, BNS–The Lithuanian parliament Thursday adopted fast-track amendments to allow the Goodwill Fund administering compensation for Jewish religious community property to allocate funds more freely. The vote was 81 MPs for, 1 against and 5 abstentions. Under the new amendment, the Goodwill Fund will be allowed to cover its administrative costs using monies from the state. It suggests fixing administration costs so they never exceed 10 percent of the annual amount of compensation paid out by the treasury according to the annual state budget.

Last year the fund spent 125,942 euros on expenses, but the Office of State Comptroller warned the law didn’t allow the fund to use state allocation for administrative costs. The amendments also allow the fund to invest monies paid into the fund but not used. Such a move would require careful consideration of investment security, liquidity, annual profits and other factors.

2016-03-17

Old Jewish Cemetery in Klaipėda Added to Registry of Cultural Treasures

The old Jewish cemetery in on Sinagogų street in Klaipėda has been given legal protection, the Culture Heritage Department under the Ministry of Culture reports.

Although there used to be several dozen cemeteries in Klaipėda, only a few survive. “The only Jewish cemetery in the city is the one from the early 19th to mid-20th century period. It used to be bigger than what has survived and listed on the registry of cultural treasures. It’s now about 13,000 square meters. But what has survived obviously enriches the history of the city of Klaipėda and is an important part of the city,” Audronė Puzonienienė, director of the Klaipėda office of the Cultural Heritage Department, said.

Puzonienienė cited Jonas Tatoris’s book “Senoji Klaipėda. Urbanistinė raida ir architektūra iki 1939 m.” [“Old Klaipėda. Urban Development and Architecture till 1939”] as the richest source of information about the old Jewish cemetery in the Lithuanian port town formerly known as Memel. The author of that book says there were 22 cemeteries in Memel/Klaipėda in the period from the 16th century to the early 20th century. At the beginning of the 19th century a ravelin—part of the earthen fortification for the defense of the port city— was allocated for the Jewish cemetery. The Jewish cemetery first appears on the city map in 1840, as a still rather small area surrounded by hedgerows. It was enlarged in the early 20th century. “The layout of the Jewish cemetery was different from the Lutheran cemetery: it didn’t have a central square and intersecting paths, and the territory was divided up into rectangular blocks,” Tatoris says.

2016-03-17

Argentine Director Returns to Jewish Roots with “The Tenth Man”

In his new movie, filmmaker Daniel Burman explores the Buenos Aires of his youth and the people who live there
by Igal Avidan

BERLIN–Usher, who heads a Jewish welfare foundation in Buenos Aires, is an unlikely movie star. But the middle-aged Argentinean Jew, whose real name is Oscar Barilka, is the central figure in Jewish-Argentinian director Daniel Burman’s new feature film, “El Rey del Once” (The Tenth Man).

Usher, playing himself, is almost always off-camera, but he is often heard as he works to bring his son Ariel (played by actor Alan Sabbagh) back to his roots.

“Usher is a real tzadik [righteous person] who doesn’t even know he is one,” says award-winning writer-director Burman, who won the Grand Jury Prize in 2004 for his film “El Abrazo Partido” (Lost Embrace), a comedy-drama about the grandson of Polish Holocaust refugees.

2016-03-15

Israeli Ambassador Praises Kaunas’s Concern for Jewish Heritage

Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon met with Kaunas mayor Visvaldas Matijošaitis and other city council members last week. Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas attended the meeting as well. The ambassador praised cooperation with the city of Kaunas in culture and business. Kaunas businesspeople involved in the food sector were invited to meet investors from Israel in Vilnius at the beginning of April, and the mayor was invited to attend a meeting of European city mayors in Jerusalem.

2016-03-15

Serious Work Planned at Old Jewish Cemetery in Žaliakalnis District of Kaunas

A working group for refurbishing the old Jewish cemetery in Žaliakalnis neighborhood of Kaunas met March 3. Under an agreement with the municipal administration, experts from the public agency Registrų centras [Registry Center] performed a survey and inventory of the Žaliakalnis Jewish cemetery. All gravestones were counted (5,808) and every grave was assigned a number and its exact location determined. This work took about 2 months and cost 8,000 euros. It was financed by the city of Kaunas. The work performed so far will allow the next steps to be taken: to photograph each grave, to read and translate headstone inscriptions, to identify the graves (to determine the identity of the people buried) and to create a virtual database. After that’s done, drafting and implementing a technical plan for refurbishing the cemetery will be possible. So far there is no funding for these tasks, so the plan is to approach different foundations, and the idea of recruiting volunteers for grave identification is also being considered.

The municipality is preparing a territorial planning document (designating the plot of land) for the cemetery and is planning to set up surveillance cameras at cemeteries this spring. The cemetery is always mowed and maintained.

2016-03-09

Lithuanian Jewish Community Statement on the March 11 Holiday and Neo-Nazi Chants

March 4, 2016, No. 197

To:

the honorable Algirdas Butkevičius
Government of the Republic of Lithuania
Gedimino prospect 11
Vilnius 01103

the honorable Remigijus Šimašius
Konstitucijos prospect 3
LT-09601 Vilnius

the honorable Visvaldas Matijošaitis
Laisves alley 96
LT-44251 Kaunas

cc:

Chancellory of the President of the Republic of Lithuania
S. Daukanto square 3
LT-01122 Vilnius

Statement
March 4, 2016
Vilnius

The Lithuanian Jewish Community proposes the Government of the Republic of Lithuania and the municipal governments of the cities of Vilnius and Kaunas take all possible measures to ensure the holiday to mark the 26th anniversary of the restoration of the Lithuanian state does not include neo-Nazi chants, marches and symbols and events of a similar nature.

We would like to underline the importance of this holiday for all of Lithuania’s citizens, including the Litvak community in Lithuania with its unique and long-standing traditions, and the importance of fostering in the international arena an image of Lithuania as a modern state based on democratic principles and celebrating a tradition of multiculturalism over many centuries.

We would like to remind you of the march held by the Union of Patriotic Youth and the Lithuanian National center on March 11, 2015 with permission from the Vilnius municipality. This march featured fascist and racist symbols and chants and slogans promoting ideas of segregation.

The Government and the municipal institutions should continue to make efforts so that neo-Nazi ideas do not become acceptable in Lithuanian society and especially that they shouldn’t be propagated under cover of state holidays and through manipulation of the concept of patriotism.

Sincerely,

Faina Kukliansky
chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community

2016-03-07

Užupis Jewish Cemetery to Be Declared National Protected Site

February 26, BNS–An old Jewish cemetery in Vilnius is being put forward to become a state-protected cultural heritage site. Cultural Heritage Department director Diana Varnaitė initiated the process.

“There are surviving headstones there and there should be a certain amount of state protection. The cemetery is already on the registry, it is already a cultural heritage treasure. The registry is so construed that significance determines whether the state or a local government is the party to make a decision and declare sites protected,” Cultural Heritage Department deputy director Algimantas Degutis told BNS. He said state-protected cultural treasures have stricter protection, financing and maintenance requirements.

The move to change the status of the Užupis Jewish cemetery is unconnected with plans by the adjacent funeral home to build a crematorium, Degutis said. The Vilnius municipality is against the crematorium plan.

2016-02-29

Vilnius Mayor Calls Crematorium in Jewish Cemetery Inappropriate

Vilnius, February 20, BNS–A plot of land next to the old Jewish cemetery on Olandų street is inappropriate for a crematorium and Vilnius residents will be asked their opinion on the need and location for such an operation, Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius said.

“It has to be acknowledged that this is the territory of a Jewish cemetery and it’s obvious that in Vilnius, where 40,000 Jews lived before World War II, because of the association, a crematorium in the Jewish cemetery is simply inappropriate. For that reason alone there should be no crematorium at that location,” the mayor told BNS. He confirmed the council would be presented with the decision not to approve a crematorium on Olandų street in the Lithuanian capital. The mayor also said results of a poll of public opinion on the issue of the need for and location of a crematorium in Vilnius would be presented soon. “I think there is a need among some residents of Vilnius. We ordered a poll of residents of Vilnius to identify what sort of locations are most likely, where residents would like to see a crematorium,” mayor Šimašius said. He said a final decision would be made following the public opinion poll on “where to encourage investments” in the city.

2016-02-21

Jewish Organization Proposal Increases Cost to Refurbish Palace of Sports

Vilnius, February 21, BNS–Proposals by a Jewish heritage organization for refurbishing the Palace of Sports located on top of an old Jewish cemetery in Vilnius without moving any soil would bring the cost of the project up by 2 million euros, Lithuanian Government vice chancellor Rimantas Vaitkus said.

“When there was analysis of whether it would be possible to set up an underground entrance, in their opinion that would enter into what is called the A section which can’t be touched, where earth cannot be moved. That would make the project 2 million euros more expensive. And we don’t know what’s going to happen now because Turto bankas, which is doing the construction, doesn’t have enough money to bring the project to completion. Either additional funding must be sought, or the whole project has to be reconsidered, but there no decision has been made yet,” the vice chancellor told BNS.

2016-02-21

Delegation from Argentine Rabbinate Visits Panevėžys Jewish Community

Rabbi Shmuel Arieh Levin from Argentina visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community on February 15. He arrived with eight members of his religious community. The purpose of the visit was for the delegation to observe with their own eyes the state of the Jewish community in Panevėžys, to learn more about their history, to learn about the world-renowned yeshiva and to find out more about the founder of the Ponevezh yeshiva, Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, the Ponovezher Rov and chief rabbi and former member of the Lithuanian parliament who founded in 1919 the yeshiva where 500 students from Europe studied. Rabbi Kahaneman and his eldest son, who had diplomatic status, left for America in 1940, and during World War II moved the Ponevezh yeshiva to, or reëstablished it in Bene Berak (Bnei Brak, with a sister institution in Ashdod), Israel. Rabbi Levin was graduated from the Ponevezh yeshiva in Israel and personally knew Rabbi Kahaneman and his son Elias Kahaneman. Today the world-famous yeshiva where more than 1,000 students study is led by his grandson, Rabbi Eliezer Kahaneman (Cohenman).

2016-02-18

Lithuanian Jewish Community Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky on the Holocaust Discussions of Recent Days

Several days after commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day, discussions on the topic of the Holocaust have again come up in Lithuania. In my childhood I heard everything in my family–during conversation memories of the ghetto often came to the fore, being locked in the ghetto, taken to concentration camps, about the hole where people hid. But the experience of the Holocaust was as it were one of many things which separated Jews from non-Jews. They murdered us, while others at the same time went on with their lives, went to movie theaters, went to school and studied. Over just a few months almost the entire Lithuanian Jewish community, more than 200,000 people, were exterminated. For all of my life, for the entire Soviet period, many people treated us differently. We always knew our opportunities were limited and that we were different.

2016-02-01

Wooden Synagogue Discovered under Brick Walls in Kulautuva, Lithuania

BNS–A wooden synagogue built between the two world wars was discovered as the brick walls of a building were torn down in Kulautuva, Lithuania.

The Kaunas section of the Cultural Heritage Department halted work at the site as consideration is given to what to do with the discovery, the newspaper Kauno Diena reported. Department employees said they learned of the demolition of the building over the weekend after photos were posted to facebook. Cultural heritage protection experts are mulling over the idea of making the synagogue a candidate for entry on the list of protected cultural treasures and even of moving the entire structure to the Lithuanian Folk-Life Museum in Rumšiškės outside Kaunas.

The synagogue was built in 1935 and its windows were boarded up and it was turned into storage space for the town after World War II. Major reconstruction work was performed on the building in 1967 and 1968.

2016-01-31

Lithuanian Jewish Heritage Becoming Ever More Topical

A new cultural heritage site has been added to the Lithuanian registry of cultural treasures: the Simnas brick synagogue at Laisvės street no. 4 in Simnas, in the Alytus region. The synagogue’s outer form has survived almost intact to the present day. “Jewish cultural heritage has become ever more topical recently. Municipalities and regional administrations are striving to make surviving Jewish cultural heritage in their jurisdictions known, its value is being understood, and it is being made public and resurrected to live again. The number of positive examples keeps growing. Frequently more remote small towns are known in the world only because of the surviving Jewish cultural heritage and thus draw tourists,” Diana Varnaitė, director of the Cultural Heritage Department under the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture, said.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2016-01-28

Mourning, with Breaks

by Sergejus Kanovičius

Every time an important anniversary approaches, I get uncomfortable. Even frightened. Especially when the anniversary is connected with an incalculable, perhaps incomprehensible number of victims. Frightened, because soon those who according to rank must speak, will, with the prerequisite voice of mourning. Grave words filled with bureaucratic condolences and sympathy will ring forth, then vanish in emptiness, as if a wind had blown across the frozen fields and furrows of Lithuania.

2016-01-072017-07-12

Opening of Exhibition of Litvak Art Accompanied by Music Performed by Levickis

The Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum unveiled a new art exhibit December 16 called “Shalom Israel! Litvak Artists.” The show includes 37 works by 24 Litvak artists from the museum’s collections, the Lewben Art Foundation, the Lithuanian Exiles Art Fund, the attorney’s office Valiunas Ellex and other private collections. One of the more surprising items at the opening was a musical presentation by Martynas Levickis, accordion player and one of Lithuania’s most famous virtuosos. Levickis performed works by Paganini, Rossini and Vivaldi.

Deputy museum director Dr. Kamilė Rupeikaitė welcomed guests to the event and Valiunas Ellex director Rolandas Valiūnas, Lewben Art Foundation director Indrė Tubinienė and Lithuanian MP Emanuelis Zingeris spoke. Zingeris said Litvak artists kept putting Lithuania on the map even when the country was occupied and acted as Lithuanian ambassadors to the world. He said their Lithuanian origins were indicated next to their works at the most famous galleries everywhere.

Art history expert and curator Dr. Vilma Gradinskaitė presented the idea behind the exhibit and pointed out that almost all of the works on exhibit were being shown publicly for the first time. Two contemporary artists, R. Savickas and A. Jacovskytė, even created works especially for this exhibition. Dr. Gradinskaitė said: “Some of the paintings and graphics works, drawing and medals executed in various styles reveal a dual process in the development of Jewish art and demonstrate how Litvak artists shaped Israeli art, as well as how Israel’s natural environment and local folk-art traditions affected the artistic expression of Litvak artists, including scenery, manner of painting, color palette and mood.”

2015-12-17

Jewish Cultural Tourism Route Association Established

The Jewish Cultural Route Association was officially established at a meeting at the Lithuanian Economics Ministry on December 5, 2015. The group is tasked with drafting and developing a Jewish cultural tourism program with a consistent itinerary of sites in Lithuania.

The meeting at the ministry was called at the initiative of the Cultural Heritage Department. Department director Diana Varnaitė presented the plan there and State Tourism Department director Jurgita Kazlauskienė presented the idea of a Lithuanian Jewish cultural tourism program as a competitive product in the market.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky spoke at the meeting and said it wouldn’t have been possible to achieve the results achieved so far without the participation of all the various institutions involved. “I would like to thank you for the efforts made to preserve our cultural heritage and to present it to the world. Synagogues and Jewish cemeteries are today being renovated and put in order. There is still some suspicion in talk about us, characterizing relations with Jews as ‘us and them,’ but I would disagree with that sort of attitude,” she said.

2015-12-16

Wooden Synagogues as Tourist Attractions

The Lithuanian Cultural Heritage Department under the Ministry of Culture has posted a PDF file on their website about wooden synagogues in Lithuania and their potential as tourist attractions called “Road of Wooden Synagogues”:

The Road of Wooden Synagogues

The 16th and the 17th centuries were a period of rapid growth and expansion for Jewish communities in Lithuania. These communities could not exist without a synagogue which was their socio-economic, administrative and spiritual centre. The synagogue was where members of the community prayed, studied Torah, and dealt with the problems of the entire community or those of individual members. The synagogue was the first building which a newly established Jewish community would construct as soon as possible to fulfill their vital needs, and thus, of course, they would use the most widespread and cheapest material for constructing the building. The material that served this purpose in the territory of Lithuania was wood which was also used widely in Lithuanian folk architecture. Later, after becoming economically stronger, the Jewish community would build a stone synagogue right next to the wooden one thus forming a courtyard of synagogues. The importance of wooden synagogues would then decrease slightly. Jewish people gathered in wooden synagogues during holidays. Due to the risk of fire, these synagogues would in most cases not be heated therefore they acquired the name cold synagogues (in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.)

2015-12-16

A Disappearing Legacy: The Architecture of Wooden Synagogues

The Jewish Culture and Information Center’s Shofar Gallery (Mėsinių g. 3a/5, Vilnius) will host an exhibition of three-dimensional architectural models called “A Disappearing Legacy: The Architecture of Wooden Synagogues” opening at 6:00 P.M. on Friday, December 18, 2015.

The cultural heritage educational project was the unique idea of the architect Aurimas Širvys. Protection and adaptation of wooden synagogues is one of the most urgent problems in wooden-building heritage protection. This project will attempt to bring public attention to the documentation of wooden heritage using the latest computer modeling tools and to present non-invasive techniques for restoring damaged heritage sites.

2015-12-16