History of the Jews in Lithuania

Rafael Gimelstein Takes Respectable 2nd Place in Lithuanian Championship

Rafael Gimelstein Takes Respectable 2nd Place in Lithuanian Championship

Lithuanian Makabi athlete and LJC member Rafael Gimelstein, 47, recently took second place in the Lithuanian Table Tennis Veterans Championship, both in individual play and in duals with partner Jurga Grucytė,

Last year Gimelstein won first in dual matches and shared third and fourth places for one-on-one play. He is currently preparing to compete at the World Maccabiah Games in Israel later this year as part of the Lithuanian delegation. Even so, he finds time to teach ping-pong to students at Sholem Aleichem in Vilnius. He also holds table tennis sessions at the park across the street from the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius open to the general public, with matches on the weekends.

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Art of the Jewish Renaissance Exhibit

Art of the Jewish Renaissance Exhibit

The Jewish Culture and Information Center is pleased to announce an exhibit called Art of the Jewish Renaissance from the collection of Tanya Rubinstein-Horowitz. She comes from a family of collectors and inherited much of the family collection from granfather Jakov Rubinstein, born in Warsaw in 1901, deceased in Moscow 1983. Jakov managed over a quarter of a century to amass a collection of early 20th century Jewish art from the Russian Empire and tje Soviet Union rivalling any other such collection in the world.

This period of creativity has been called the Jewish Renaissance, tragically cut short by Soviet ethnic and religious policy.

The exhibit includes a portion of wokrs by Tsfania-Gedalia Kipnis in her series Shtetl: Arayn un Aroys.

The exhibit is free and open to the public.

Time: June 5 to August 8
Place: Jewish Culture and Information Center, Mėsinių street no. 3a/5, Vilnius

New Holocaust Remembrance Project Echoes

New Holocaust Remembrance Project Echoes

A new Holocaust remembrance project called Echoes kicked off in May of 2025, subtitled “Conversations with Holocaust Survivors using Artificial Intelligence.” The project was first demonstrated in Thessaloniki, Greece recently with staff from the Lithuanian Jewish Community participating. Thessaloniki has had a Jewish community for over 2,000 years.

Project partners include the Saloniki Jewish Museum, the European Commussion, CERV, the Lithuanian Jewish Community and others.

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Kaunas Jewish Community Honors Righteous Gentiles

Kaunas Jewish Community Honors Righteous Gentiles

Although sadly their numbers continue to diminish naturally, Righteous Gentiles were again honored by the Kaunas Jewish Community at their annual event.

Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas said: “It is also great to receive these old family friends of ours we know so well, and it is equally great to meet these new descendants of rescuers and to make new friends with them.”

Architect Tauras Budzys attended the event for the first time this year. He’s been marking the graves of Righteous Gentiles with a symbol of his own design, at his own initiative and expense. Conservative MP Paulė Kuzmickienė also attended. She initiated legislation for Lithuania’s Day of Righteous Gentiles, March 15, in parliament back in 2022. The duet Perfect Nemesis provided musical accompaniment for the evening.

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Moshe Shapiro Honored on Lithuanian Ethnic Minorities Day

Moshe Shapiro Honored on Lithuanian Ethnic Minorities Day

Švenčionys Jewish Community chairman Moshe Shapiro received the Silver Honor Award from the Lithuanian Ethnic Minorities Department on Lithuania’s Ethnic Minority Communities Day May 21 at St. Catherine’s Church in Vilnius.

Shapiro was recognized for his contributions to preservation of Jewish historical memory, tireless community work, working for integration, educating the younger generations and contributing to the culture of Lithuanian ethnic minorities.

Pabradė municipal cultural center director Lolita Vilimienė presented the prize to chairman Shapiro.

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Visitors with Roots in Panevėžys

Visitors with Roots in Panevėžys

The Panevėžys Jewish Community received visitors with roots in the northern Lithuanian city last week. Larry Shuman and wife Barbara live in Pittsburgh. Grandfather Jakob Shuman and great grandparents Natan and Yelka Shuman lived in Panevėžys and went to America in 1890. Gary Kaiserl also comes from the USA. His grandfather Israel and great-grandmother Yulia Levit (their surname used to be Cezarski in Panevėžys) left for America between 1880 and 1890.

Local High School Tolerance Center Visits Panevėžys Jewish Community

Local High School Tolerance Center Visits Panevėžys Jewish Community

Ninth-graders and teacher Jekaterina Ledneva from the Velžys Pro-Gymnasium in the Panevėžys set up a Tolerance Center at their school and visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community as part of that initiative. They wanted to know more about the pre-Holocaust local Jewish population, Jewish customs and traditions, holidays and what happened in the Holocaust. The students visited the ghetto territory in the northern Lithuanian city and laid floral wreaths at the monument marking the former ghetto gate.

Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman spoke to the young people as part of the Community’s ongoing educational outreach program and spoke about how Jews and Lithuanians lived together before the Holocaust, often enough as co-owners of businesses, sharing their expertise. They celebrated holidays together and shared in their joys and misfortunes, sometimes sacrificing their last bit of bread for one another, Kofman said. Russian and Jewish children attended the same high schools both in Tsarist Russia and independent Lithuania, Kofman recalled.

The ninth-graders also learned about Jewish holidays including Passover, Purim, Rosh Hashanna and others, and the stories behind these holidays. Kofman spoke about kosher food and why healthy food and cleanliness is so important in Jewish tradition. The students had the chance to sample matzo bread and heard the story of unleavened bread during the Exodus from Egypt. The students posed many questions and had a chance to tour the Community building as well.

Jewish Communities across Africa

Jewish Communities across Africa

Photo: Delegates from around the world attended the Jewish Africa Conference

The third Jewish Africa Conference, an event spearheaded by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), Mimouna Association (Morocco) and the American Sephardi Federation (ASF), took place during April in Cape Town.

The conference was supported by the Cape SA Jewish Board of Deputies, with a welcome address by chair of the board Adrienne Jacobson. Predecessor conferences were held in New York in 2019 and in Rabat, Morocco, in 2022. The event took place at the Old Shul, the SA Jewish Museum and the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Cape Town.

According to Wayne Sussman, director of the AJC Africa Institute who oversaw conference proceedings, “We all know that the South African Jewish community has made a rich contribution to Jewish life around the world. This is also true with other African Jewish communities. They have strong traditions and customs. Many made a huge impact on their respective countries. This conference allowed Jews from across Africa and scholars interested in Jewish African life today to come together and make sense of how we carry on building our respective communities and ensure we preserve our past properly.”

While we in South Africa tend to think of Jewish life from an Eastern European bias–because the bulk of our community is of Ashkenazi origin–Jewish life in fact traces a great deal back to Africa. With roots in ancient Egypt, Jewish religious and cultural practice are certainly a significant feature of the African continent.

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Holocaust Historian, Litvak Wife Visit Panevėžys Jewish Community

Holocaust Historian, Litvak Wife Visit Panevėžys Jewish Community

Noah and Frances Schoen (Milinsky) visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community May 12. The family lives in Pittsburgh. Noah is an historian and teacher who reseraches the Holocaust. His lectures discuss forms of anti-Semitism from prejudice to genocide. He was an eye-witness at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2012 when a gunman opened fire on the congregation.

His wife teaches children aged 11 to 14 and leads summer youthg camps. Her father’s family comes from Panevėžys and immigrated to America early on, preserving their Litvak heritage.

Chairman Gennady Kofman spoke to them about the Community’s current activities and showed them around the archive collection, and they talked about anti-Semitism in Europe and America. Kofman gave them a tour of the northern Lithuanian city focusing on Jewish heritage sites.

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Kaunas Jewish Community Celebrates Righteous Gentiles from the Čiurlionis Family

Kaunas Jewish Community Celebrates Righteous Gentiles from the Čiurlionis Family

As part of the Year of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, the Lithuanian artist and composer, the Kaunas Jewish Community presents two events June 2 to celebrate the Righteous Gentiles in his family.

At 4:00 P.M.a plaque will be unveiled commemorating Čiurlionis’s wife Sofija, daughter Danutė and son-in-law Vladimir Zubov, all people who rescued Jews. The plaque will be located on the building which houses the memorial apartment once occupied by Sofija. The address is Žemaičių street no. 10, Kaunas.

At 6:00 P.M. Vyautas Magnus University will host a concert dedicated to Sofija, Danutė and Vladimir at their Great Hall (Gimnazijos street no. 4, Kaunas) featuring music and recollections by pianist Rokas Zubovas and his wife Sonata, pianists and organists who have received the Čiurlionis prize, Kaunas Jewish Community member Robertas Lozinskis and Vytautas Magnus University’s own choir Vivere Cantus.

These events are free and open to the public.

Litvak Identity Museum Hosts YIVO Retrospective

Litvak Identity Museum Hosts YIVO Retrospective

The Chwoles Gallery within the Litvak Identity Museum will host a YIVO exhibit called “Stories of Vilnius” to mark the YIVO’s 100th anniversary. The opening is on May 21 and will run till December 28.

Time: 6:00 P.M., May 21
Place:Litvak Identity Museum, Pylimo street no. 4a, Vilnius

Kuršiai Social Center Clients Meet Panevėžys Jewish Community

Kuršiai Social Center Clients Meet Panevėžys Jewish Community

Members of Panevėžys chapter of the Kuršiai Social Center visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community and met with chairman Gennady Kofman.

Kuršiai members had the opportunity to learn about Jewish history and culture and the Holocaust. Kofman spoke in detail about the Jewish community who lived in Panevėžys before the Holocaust, their contribution to the development of the horthern Lithuanian city and their mass murder.

He emphasized Jewish education, religious and cultural traditions and efforts to preserve historical memory. The audience learned about the current activities of the Panevėžys Jewish Community including educational projects and memorial initiatives.

Attendees thanked the chairman and the Community for the warm reception and discussed their understanding of cultural diversity and values

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Hazamir Choir from Helsinki to Perform

Hazamir Choir from Helsinki to Perform

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is pleased to host a concert by the exceptional Jewish choir Hazamir from Finland. The choir has existed for more than 100 years (founded in 1917) and has performed Jewish music or audiences in Europe and America, and has even appeared on MTV. Their repertoire includes traditional songs in Hebrew and Yiddish, but also Swedish, Finnish and more recently Russian as well. This will be their only appearance in Vilnius during this tour.

Registration is required by sending an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt.

Time: 2:00 P.M., Sunday, June 8
Place: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius

Lecture on Early Jewish Photography in Lithuania

Lecture on Early Jewish Photography in Lithuania

The Vilnius Picture Gallery and the Lithuanian Museum of National Art will host a lecture by Dainius Junevičius called “Early Lithuanian Photography: Jews on Both Sides of the Lens” at the picture gallery at 5:30 P.M., Tuesday, May 20. The event is free and open to the public.

Junevičius is an expert on the history of photography. He will speak on the role Jewish photographers played in early Lithuanian photography from the Jewish owners and photographers of first photo studios in Vilnius to the work of talented photographer Miron Butkovski (1865-1938) who earned the Vatican’s gratitude fir his photos of Vilnius’s churches in the late 19th century, and will also speak about the evolution of photography in Lithuania and in general and the pioneers in other locations in Lithuania.
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His lecture will include demonstrations of the earliest photographs of Jews starting with those from a Russian ethnographic exhibit in 1867 and extending through the Jewish ethnographic field surveys led by An-sky from 1912 ro 1914.

The lecture and slideshow is part of the exhibit “You Shall Not Make an Images” the Vilnius Picture Gallery and YIVO opened March 5 and which will run till September 14. Registration is not required for the lecture and there is no fee for admission..

Time: 5:30 P.M., Tuesday, May 20
Place: Vilnius Picture Gallery, Didžioji street no. 4, Vilnius

Vilna Gaon Museum Offers Free Entrance on Museum Night in Vilnius

Vilna Gaon Museum Offers Free Entrance on Museum Night in Vilnius

The Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum is staying open late and offering free admission at three of its facilities to celebrate Museum Night on May 17, the night most museums in Vilnius offer free addmission and stay open late. The Litvak Identity Museum, the Holocaust Exhibit at the Green House and the Samuel Bek Museum at the Tolerance Center are offering their own programs including an outdoor café open all evening and new exhibit openings. For more information, send an email to aiste.brusokaite@jmuseum.lt.

Congratulations to Rafael Gimelštein

Congratulations to Rafael Gimelštein

Photo: Rafael Gimelštein, right

Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club member Rafael Gimelštein and his Kilvatai team from Vilnius have won in the second league of the Lithuanian table tennis championship, beating Vilnius Tech, Tamsta from Vilnius and Kaunas’s Red and Black teams.

The final match against a team from Šiauliai will determine the distribution of medals. If Klivatai loses that match, they take 5th place, and if they win, 1st. \\

Rafael Gimelštein coaches the after-school tennis club for young people at the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius.

Congratulations, Rafael!

Moishele, Mayn Fraynd

Moishele, Mayn Fraynd

An evening of music dedicated to the memory of Mikhail Filyopov-Jablonskis

Fayerlakh invites you to a special event dedicated to remembering and honoring the late Mikhail Filyopov, one of the most outstanding performers of Jewish music in Lithuania, a man who dedicated his life to music, the stage and culture.

Tickets are available starting from €20.00 here.

Time: 5:00 P.M., Sunday, June 8
Place: House of Polish Culture, Naugarduko street no. 76, Vilnius

Integration and Inclusion Forum

Integration and Inclusion Forum

The Ethnic Minorities Department and the British Council are holding a two-day conference and discussion on integration and inclusion on May 22 and 23 at Novotel Hotel in Vilnius. Those wishing to attend should register by May 15 at www.inforum.lt.

The conference will host experts on minority integration and human rights, media representatives, politicians, members of Lithuania’s ethnic minority communities, foreign speakers and more.

The Integration and Inclusion Forum is part of events to celebrate Lithuania’s Ethnic Minorities Day May 21, which kicks off with an awards event at St. Catherine’s Church in Vilnius at 3:00 P.M. The awards will be given to those who have distinguished themselves through their work with Lithuania’s ethnic minorities.

Jewish Scouts Hike

Jewish Scouts Hike

Jewish scouts hiked the Neris Regional Park last week on the way to a campsite. Fording a river in the scouting manner, hikers took in beautiful forest and natural vistas, played a game they called “nature bingo” to learn more about nature and botany, sang songs and did other activities in the program.

More experienced scouts taught newer ones how to use a compass and maps, and how to determine cardinal directions in the natural environment. The scouts also cooked their own meal. The younger ones learned about semaphore flag signals and different groups tried to communicate over long distances using that system. More experienced scouts tried their hand at building shelters, tying knots and using them in the structures and setting up tents.

The program for the hike was made up largely by the older scouts at weekly meetings. Several months ago hiking skills were brought up and resulted in a teaching program for scouts where they performed various tasks and learned about prepared for hikes in the wilderness, how to wear backpacks more effectively, planning routes, navigating by compass, appropriate food needs and similar things, and then organized this recent hike.

Thank you to everyone who participated and to those who didn’t, more such events are being planned.