History of the Jews in Lithuania

Hanukkah and the Light of the Torah

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Dr. Aušra Pažėraitė

The Talmud (Shabbat 21b) speaks rather laconically of the origins of this holiday:

“Kislev 25, the days of Hanukkah which are eight, there is no mourning, there is no fasting during these days. When the Greeks came into the Temple, they polluted all the oil in the Temple, and when the Hasmonean dynasty overcame and defeated them, they checked [the Temple] and found just one jug of oil, which was in its place, and was sealed with the seal of the High Priest. But in it there was oil [only sufficient] for burning for just one day. A miracle occurred in connection with it: it burned for eight days. The next year they established them [these days] as holy days for giving glory (hallel) and thanks.”

The retelling isn’t as comprehensive as found in the Christian Bible where the two Books of the Maccabees written in Greek are found. They tell a longer story of Jewish persecution during the reign of the Hellenistic king of Syria Antiochus Epiphanes, the Jewish revolt under the brothers Maccabee and their victory. The Greek telling is full of rhetorical details speaking to how widespread Greek culture had taken root throughout the nation, even among the priesthood of the Temple in Jerusalem: “Now such was the height of Greek fashions, and increase of heathenish manners, through the exceeding profaneness of Jason, that ungodly wretch, and no high priest; That the priests had no courage to serve any more at the altar, but despising the temple, and neglecting the sacrifices, hastened to be partakers of the unlawful allowance in the place of exercise, after the game of Discus called them forth; Not setting by the honors of their fathers, but liking the glory of the Grecians best of all” (2 Maccabees 4:13-15). Athletics were practiced in the nude, and so displayed the evidence of circumcision, which caused shame, since it didn’t fit with the Greek ideal of manly virtue, kalokagathia. It tells how the Temple was looted and desecrated, and renamed Jupiter Olympus. Demands by the “Greek” regime to violate the Torah are also enumerated, and the story of the martyrs who refused to do so is provided. Many of the details of the stories are unclear to historians, but a general picture of the times is more or less provided. And this includes not just the brutal actions of the Hellenistic regime, but also the attraction and endless temptation Hellenistic thought and the Hellenistic lifestyle exerted.

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Respect for Ethnic Community Heritage Successful Element of Integration

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The Ethnic Minorities Department under the Lithuanian Government held a discussion called “Respect for Ethnic Community Heritage a Successful Element of Integration” just before Christmas where heritage specialists, representatives of Lithuania’s ethnic minorities and members of the press discussed ethnic heritage.

Ethnic Minorities Department director Dr. Vida Montvydaitė opened the discussion noting the topic of heritage unites all of the country’s communities and associations.

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Diana Varnaitė, director of the Cultural Heritage Department under the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture, said Lithuania’s cultural heritage is reflected in the country’s ethnic associations and their stories in the context of the development of the Lithuanian state. “Our state is very rich in associations who have created symbols. The most easily and most frequently recognized ones are sacred sites,” she said, noting many associations hold dear their historical cemeteries. She said there is often a lack of knowledge preventing recognition of this diversity, so that the ethnic communities are often the best partners in heritage protection work, and that her organization has great expectations of the Ethnic Minorities Department. Varnaitė said recognition of heritage is the key to its preservation. “What we recognize, what we hold dear, becomes part of us, our communities, the ethnic associations themselves and the local communities.”

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Greetings from Lithuanian Jewish Community Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky

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Dear members of the Jewish community, greetings to all on this holiday of Hanukkah!

I hope good feelings and warm and pleasant moments with loved ones will accompany you as you light the first Hanukkah candle. I wish you health and concord in your family, and that our children would grow up safe, dignified and happy and be proud of their parents and their roots.

It is a happy thing that there is ever-growing interest in the rich history of the Jews, and I probably won’t be making a mistake to say that there was never so much interest in the Jewish community as there is now, although so few Jews are left in Lithuania. The Jewish Community works actively to insure the rights and freedoms of our members and to promote Jewish interests. Unfortunately we weren’t able to achieve all our goals in 2016, but we will continue to strive after them in the coming year: monuments to those who shot Jews need to be removed, and Vilnius needs to have a monument commemorating those who rescued Jews from the Holocaust. We will continue to work on the issue of restitution of private property.

The Jewish Community is investing in the future, issuing scholarships and stipends for Jewish students and accomplished athletes. Plans for a new kindergarten have been completed, a kindergarten which will insure Jewish values are passed down to the youngest members of our community and prepare them for further education at the Jewish school.

One of the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s top priorities is to improve the living conditions of clients in our Social Programs Department. We help when emergencies and misfortune occur. This will remain our priority in 2017. We also help rescuers of Jews, whose humility and sincere gratitude encourage us to grow and improve. I would like to thank Jewish rescuer Regina for the gloves and socks she knitted.

The Community building itself has become lighter and cozier. We have new audio-visual equipment in the Community concert hall and there are always new and different exhibitions on display. It’s a great joy that there is cultural life, ferment and creativity in the community, and that performers from Lithuania, Israel, the USA, the Netherlands, Romania and other countries perform concerts here. It is also a happy occasion that we have deepened our contacts with the foreign embassies, other countries, municipal institutions and NGOs. Thanks to this cooperation legal amendments were finally adopted to make it easier for Litvaks to restore Lithuanian citizenship. We signed an agreement on cooperation with the American Jewish Committee, we are enjoying wonderful relations with other world Jewish organizations and we are expanding contacts in the West as well as in the East, with the Jewish communities in India and Japan.

Interest in religion is reviving as well. We have two rabbis working at the Community who give lessons educating young and old on various topics in Judaism.

In cooperation with international Jewish organizations and based on their recommendations, we have increased security at the Community and synagogue buildings, and are approaching western standards of security.

We have the only kosher café in Vilnius. The Bagel Shop has attracted significant attention and television crews from Canada, Germany and of course Lithuania, too, have featured the café. It has become a place where not only Jews gather, but also aficionados of Jewish cuisine and culture. Our challa-baking event was a good time for all, and US ambassador Anne Hall was enchanted by the experience. The Jewish languages project carried out with the Cultural Heritage Department attracted much attention by many residents of the Lithuanian capital and visitors from elsewhere. In greeting you all, I invite Community members to show even greater initiative and self-confidence in proposing ways to make their hopes and dreams come true, because the Community exists to benefit its members.

My holiday greetings go out as well to Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon and the chairmen of the regional communities: Gennady Kofman, Gercas Žakas, Artūras Taicas, Feliksas Puzemskis, Moisej Šapiro and Josifas Buršteinas. Thank you all for the active roles you play and for working together.

Khag Khanuka Sameakh!

Lithuanian National Radio and Television Names Marius Ivaškevičius Man of the Year

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Marius Ivaškevičius, the writer and organizer of a Holocaust commemoration march in Molėtai, Lithuania, has been named Man of the Year for 2016 by Lithuanian National Radio and Television.

Last May Ivaškevičius published an internet appeal for the public to attend a march in his hometown along the route Jews were taken to their deaths in 1941. He followed this appeal with an essay called “I’m Not Jewish,” a translation of which attracted the most visitors to any single item on the Lithuanian Jewish Community web site ever.

Ivaškevičius’s march in Molėtai attracted international attention and dominated the Lithuanian media on August 29, 2016. About 3,000 people from Lithuania and abroad marched from the town square to the mass grave site, the same route about 2,000 Jews marched to their deaths 75 years earlier.

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Lithuanian Citizenship Granted Several Hundred Litvaks after Correction to Law

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Vilnius, December 25, BNS–After the law was amended to provide greater opportunities to Jews who left Lithuania between the wars to restore citizenship, several hundred requests for Lithuanian citizenship have been granted.

The Lithuanian Migration Department reports following amendments adopted in April of 2016, Lithuanian citizenship was restored to 223 people of Jewish ethnicity through the third quarter of the year. Of these, 209 held Israeli citizenship and 14 South African. No applications were rejected. A significant portion of requests have not been processed yet, but Migration Department representatives said the trend continues for the fourth quarter and citizenship should be restored for another 200 people.

Citizenship was also granted to 36 people whose applications had been rejected earlier. Before the new law came into effect, both the number of requests granted and requests rejected were growing annually. In 2014 10 were rejected, in 2015 76, and in the first half of 2016 105 applications by Litvaks for restoration of Lithuanian citizenship were rejected. Correspondingly, in 2014 528 cases of restoration of citizenship to Jews were granted, in 2015 602, but in the first half of 2016 just 125 people of Jewish ethnicity received positive answers.

“As early as the beginning of the year we knew there would be some sort of changes, so we froze potentially negative decisions. When the new law was adopted, we renewed the frozen cases, so that perhaps explains why the positive decisions increased. But there is no flood,” Migration Department director Evelina Gudzinskaitė told BNS.

She said there are three main reasons Litvak descendants seek Lithuanian citizenship. “For some there is a symbolic tie to Lithuania, they want to restore citizenship, to have it, they want to maintain their roots. For some they need it for practical reasons, they want to come back here, they’re involved in cemetery protection, restoration of synagogues, they are concerned with heritage which still survives here, they want to visit [heritage sites]… A Lithuanian passport is also citizenship in the European Union, so there’s the opportunity to arrive in the EU, to travel more easily,” she commented

In April the law was changed to make it more explicit, following a new procedure by migration officials and courts demanding Litvaks provide proof they or their ancestors were persecuted in Lithuania during the period between the two world wars. The matter revolved around a nuance in meaning, between the words “fled” and “withdrew.” Both cases are now covered in the new language.

First Hanukkah Light Lit at Lithuanian Jewish Community

Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon and Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky lit the first Hanukkah candle on a menorah on the balcony of the Community building in Vilnius Saturday night. Vilnius Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yatom added to the beauty and dignity of the ceremony with his performance of a hymn.

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Saturday evening, December 24, marked the beginning of the Hanukkah holiday. Hanukkah is always celebrated for eight days, beginning on the 25th day of Kislev on the Jewish calendar. The word itself is often explained as coming from a root for inauguration, consecration and dedication.

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Sholem Aleichem Students Celebrate Hanukkah

Vilniaus Šolomo Aleichemo ORT gimnazijos vaikai švenčia Chanuką

Gymnasium director for informal education Ela Pavinskienė said students in a volunteer group had learned how to make decorative garlands which were hung up around the school. The teacher taught students in grades 1 to 5 about the holiday, story and meaning of Hanukkah, and about kosher food rules. The students learned how to make traditional Hanukkah doughnuts.

Pavinskienė said students from grades 1 to 4 held a concert directed by third-graders, with each grade contributing a song, dance or skit. All participants received a doughnut and a small gift. The children came to the concert in their holiday best and in a festive mood. There was a contest for best homemade menorah. The menorahs are now on display on windowsills on the second floor. Each grade also held a light-show with music.

Children were asked to make doughnuts at home with their parents, and so many delicious doughnuts were brought in. A lottery was held for those who had contributed doughnuts with the winner selected at random who received a special prize.

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Writer and Thinker Tomas Venclova Condemns Street Named after Lithuanian Nazi in Vilnius

Tomas Venclova: „Škirpa nusipelnė gatvės ne daugiau negu Paleckis“

“Škirpa doesn’t deserve a street named after him any more than Paleckis does.”

Poet, writer, translator and intellectual professor Tomas Venclova, currently living in the U.S., is highly critical of a street in Vilnius still named after interwar Lithuanian diplomat and colonel Kazys Škirpa.

“I think Kazys Škirpa, who obsequiously served Hitler and worked with the Gestapo, has no more earned having a street named after him than has Justas Paleckis, who kowtowed to Stalin and worked with the NKVD,” Venclova said in a statement which was read at a discussion at the Old Town Hall in Vilnius.

“The argument that Škirpa was in favor of independence while Paleckis was against is demagogic and full of error. THey both attempted to preserve independence formally but not actually under the protection of totalitarian regimes, and both of them killed independence,” the professor of literature and one of the five founders of Lithuania’s Helsinki Group said.

Full story here.

A Story of Moral Courage

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SKOVAGALIU, LITHUANIA… NOVEMBER 1943 Lea Port and Samuel Ingel were members of a resistance group in the Kovno ghetto. They escaped the ghetto and walked more then 100 kilometers towards the village of Simnas. There they met Semonas Tamulinas, a communist who had been hiding from the Germans for three years. He said that since Lea did not look Jewish she could pass as a Christian and his sister, Elena Ivanauskai, would take her into her home. Lea lived with Elena and Petras Ivanauskai and their two children, Giedrute and Gintautas. At first Elena did not know that Lea was Jewish, but once she found out she agreed to keep hidding her. As the weather became colder Lea asked Elena if Samuel could hid in their barn. Elena agreed to help Samuel too. Lea and Samuel stayed with the Ivanauskai family until the area was liberated by the Soviet army in August 1944. In 2006 the JFR reunited Lea with Giedrute.

To read more about Giedrute and Gintautas Ivanauskai click here.

Read more at: https://jfr.org/video-library/reunion-2006/

Hanukkah Greetings from Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Friends,

JTA was founded in 1917 to inform the world about the plight of Jewish refugees after World War I.

As we get set to turn 100, more than 1 million Jews still live in Europe. They aren’t refugees, but they face alarming developments — including anti-Jewish violence from jihadist terrorists and spikes in anti-Semitism, anti-Israel activism and political extremism. The post-Holocaust framework that has kept the peace in Europe for 70 years is teetering.

One thing that hasn’t changed and won’t change: JTA is paying attention — and keeping you informed about the lives of our brothers and sisters in Europe.

We are on the ground with a full-time reporter and a network of correspondents.

To continue and even expand our reporting efforts, we need your help.

Your financial support is critical to our efforts. Please make a tax-deductible gift today. Join our community of supporters who believes that keeping everyone informed and connected helps Jewish communities throughout the world remain safe and strong.

May the Hanukkah lights bring much warmth and joy to your home.

Sincerely,

Ami Eden,
CEO and executive editor
newsdesk@jta.org

P.S. A generous donor will match all new and increased gifts to JTA. Thank you in advance for your support. Should you wish, mail your check to JTA, 24 W. 30th St., 4th Floor, New York, NY 10001.

If you have already made you year-end gift, you have my heartfelt thanks.

Fayerlakh 45th Birthday Concert: No Signs of Old Age Yet

A concert to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the founding of the Fayerlakh Jewish song and dance ensemble took place December 18 with an overflow crowd of well-wishers and fans. A large screen projection by the stage relayed images to those in the very back of the hall, and Jews from the regional communities as well as the Lithuanian capital turned out in abundance. The group performed some songs in Yiddish and the birthday coincided with the issuing of a new CD by the collective which includes qualified musicians from across the generations, from children to the elderly.

Of the ensembles 40 or so members, the youngest is just five and the most senior about to turn 70. The little flame which sprang up in 1971 burns on, and the audience on December 18 included more non-Jews than Jews, including a delegation from the Association of Disabled Poles who attended in wheelchairs.

The entire year has been a celebration of the collective’s birthday and in March Lithuanian prime minister Butkevičius sent warm wishes for their continued success. The ensemble was presented with a large cake with small flames at the mid-December celebration, and Lithuanian parliamentary speaker Pranckietis hailed the longest-surviving musical group in Lithuanian history as well.

Klaipėda Jewish Community Hold Charity Action at Klaipėda Children’s Hospital

For the fifth year in a row the Klaipėda Jewish Community has carried out a charity campaign to help the patients at the Klaipėda Children’s Hospital. According to Jewish custom, children receive a bit of money and gifts during Hanukkah which they must share. Children donated gifts to children being treated at the trauma unit of the hospital. Children’s Hospital chief physician Klaudija Bobianskienė told children and parents about the Children’s Hospital and showed them the latest diagnostic equipment. Diapers were donated to the newborns’ unit during the charity event as well.

Al Jolson Birthday Concert

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You are invited to a concert to celebrate the 130th birthday of Litvak musician and screen star Al Jolson at 7:00 P.M. on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius.

Free to the public, come and enjoy!

Radio Documentary: Jews of Zarasai Region United by Love of Nature and Tragic Fate

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At 11:05 A.M. on Sunday Lithuanian National Radio, to be rebroadcast Tuesday at 9:00 A.M.

Lithuanian National Radio and Television looks back at the forgotten past of the Jews of Lithuania.

 

“Zarasai occupies a very warm place in my heart. There I spent what were probably the most important years of my childhood,” famous US cartoonist Al Jaffee (Mad Magazine and others) says. One might say his mother was killed by her love of her native land, according to a biography of the famous caricaturist from Zarasai. Those who left the region and the children of Holocaust survivors have a palpable nostalgia for the land with its lakes, forests and easy-going and care-free life. This sense is shared by all the residents of the different towns and villages interviewed, and who are creating their own initiatives to remember this forgotten part of their history.

Zarasai, Dusetos, Salakas, Antalieptė–the life of all the Jews who lived in these towns was snuffed out in Krakynė forest. Radio Documentary will take a look at the past of all these interconnected towns and how the Jewish community there is remembered today.

Hostess Vita Ličytė

Let’s Honor Our Hanukkah Traditions

Lithuania is a country with roots in the Litvak (mitnagdic, Jewish Orthodox) tradition. Our community is the direct inheritor of more than 600 years of Jewish history and the successor to the traditions of the Vilna Gaon, and we keep our traditions.

When the Jewish museum chose the Gaon’s name for their title, we understood it as a sign of respect for mitnagdic tradition. Has someone proposed changing that name? Let’s honor our traditions during Hanukkah as well. Lighting a menorah in a city square is a Chabad tradition, and Litvaks do not encourage that sort of celebration of Hanukkah, instead, everyone is invited to Vilnius’s only working synagogue.

Electric lights are most often used in huge Hanukkah candelabra displays in central squares or other prominent areas of cities. Chabad reports this “tradition” began with the seventh Chabad rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Shneerson, who ordered these types of Hanukkah menorah displays in public spaces, the first having been set up in Philadelphia in 1974. Chabad Hassidim then began to carry out these sorts of campaigns around the world. These campaigns have not always and not everywhere met with support and approval. Besides different anti-Semitic attacks, there are on-going discussions even now, at least in the USA and other countries which adhere to the principle of the separation of church and state, which precludes displays of religious symbols in public spaces, a ban which is now and again in places applied to Christian symbols, and therefore should be applied to other religious symbols as well. Different municipalities, however, find a way around this ban, adopting decisions which, for example, state that neither Christmas trees nor gigantic menorahs erected in public spaces are religious. We could probably agree with that belief, having in mind these huge menorahs are not traditional in public spaces. All the more so since they employ electric lights rather than wax candles or oil. But the diverse politicians who participate in these lighting ceremonies likely participate viewing them as a cultural rather than religious holiday, seeking to demonstrate their tolerance towards ethnic minorities living in their countries.

For a number of years there has been a giant menorah set up in Vilnius at the initiative of Chabad, and politicians and diplomats like to attend the lighting ceremonies, thinking they have found an opportunity to express solidarity with the Jews of Lithuania, while the more ancient tradition of lighting the Hanukkah candles in private homes and at their entrances goes largely unnoticed. It is these lights which are supported to perform the role of testimony, the most important religious meaning: the lights should be lit at the entrance to the home or on window sills, so they can be seen from outside, as a testimony, according to the Talmudic sages. Although Chabad Hassidim are historically inseparable from the Jews of Lithuania (their communities in Vilnius date back to the time of the Russian Empire), they do not represent all Jews of Lithuania, and especially not those who consider themselves misnagdim, often referred to simply as Litvaks. Perhaps the city of Vilnius this year could look for some sort of Solomonic solution which wouldn’t preclude the Litvak community and would respect their traditions. Or simply point out that the erection of gigantic menorahs is not automatically perceived as a universal Jewish tradition.

Litvak Holocaust Historian Dov Levin is Dead

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Dov Levin, scholar and Jewish historian, passed away December 3. The Lithuanian Jewish Community mourns the loss of the great Litvak scholar and extends our condolences to his loved ones. May his memory shine on.

Professor Levin was one of the most accomplished researchers working in Eastern European Jewish community history. Born in Kaunas in 1925, he attended a Zionist school with instruction in Hebrew and was a member of the Youth Zionist movement. He and his family were imprisoned in the Kaunas ghetto. His father Tzvi Hirsh, his mother Bluma Wigoder and his nine sisters all perished and Dov was the only survivor. In 1943 he fled the ghetto and joined the partisans. After Soviet liberation his partisan group, Death to the Occupiers, was moved to Vilnius, and Levin resolved to go to Palestine. He left Vilnius on foot for Israel in 1945. He was part of the founding of the State of Israel and fought in battles for independence. He completed his education and Hebrew University in Jerusalem and received a doctorate in history. He was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Chicago and became director of the Oral History Division of the Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at Hebrew University. Over 50 years he recorded more than 610 interviews with Holocaust survivors from the Baltic states. In 1960 he spearheaded efforts to record the testimonies of survivors in Israel and elsewhere. He is the author of over 520 academic articles and 16 books in Hebrew and English, including Lithuanian Jewry’s Armed Resistance to the Nazis 1941-1945 (1985); Baltic Jews under the Soviets (1994); Lesser of Two Evils: 1939-1941 (1995) and Litvaks: A Short History of the Jews in Lithuania (2000). Most of his work is dedicated to preserving the memory of the murdered communities, the history of the Holocaust and Holocaust denial in the Baltic states.

Three Cities to Commemorate Artist, Teacher Boris Schatz Simultaneously

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The Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon Jewish Museum is to open an exhibit of international medals decided to the memory of Boris Schatz at 5:30 P.M. on December 20. The same exhibits are to open in Sofia, Bulgaria and Jerusalem, where the artist lived and worked.

Boris Schatz (1866-1932) began his artistic career in Lithuania. Born in Varniai, he studied at the Vilnius School of Drawing, later moving to Bulgaria where he lived for a decade and taught at the Royal Academy of Art. At the age of 40 he went to Jerusalem, and in 1906 founded the Bezalel art school there, now known as the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design.

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Irena Veisaitė’s Personal History Provides View of Four 20th Century Epochs

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We offer an excerpt from the newly-published book of conversations by historian Aurimas Švedas called “Irena Veisaitė. Gyvenimas turėtų būti skaidrus“ [rena Veisaitė: Life Should Be Transparent] (lAukso žuvys publishing house) with German literature scholar, theater specialist and long-time director of the Open Society Fund of Lithuania Irena Veisaitė about her life story and thoughts about history. The book was launched at the Vilnius Picture Gallery December 15. The author and Veisaitė herself attended the book launch along with other people who know of her achievements in life and her influence on Lithuanian culture.

Švedas in his introduction to his book said: “Irena Veisaitė’s personal history allows us a glimpse of four 20th-century epochs: the interwar period, the time of the first Soviet and the Nazi occupation, the Soviet period and the years of restoration and consolidation of Lithuanian independence. The book’s heroine’s retelling of her life helps interpret the aforementioned epochs and build bridges over the gaps of miscommunication and misunderstanding which separate them. So as we spoke, I didn’t just pose the question of what really happened, I also constantly looked for opportunities to think about what, how and why we remember,”

Your life is simply suffused with the most varied events and extreme experiences. Did you ever think about sitting down and recording some of it on paper?

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