After a short break, the Bagel Shop Newsletter has returned with a new and much-anticipated end-of-2020 issue. The magazine has shifted to a newsprint folded edition, so the layout is slightly different from earlier issues. We hope you enjoy.
Beigelių krautuvėlė-EN-internet
Thursday, December 17, 2020–European Jewish Congress president Moshe Kantor has slammed a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) which allows member states to require stunning before religious slaughter of animals for meat as a fundamental attack on the basic rights of Jewish religious expression and practice.
The Court was responding to the question on a preliminary ruling by the Belgian regions of Flanders and Wallonia (and, by extension, other European authorities) to make an EU-law based religious slaughter exception meaningless by banning religious slaughter.
“The right to practice our faith and customs, one which we have been assured over many years was granted under European law, has been severely undermined by this decision,” president Kantor said.
Press release
December 4, 2020
Vilnius
The Jewish Community Announces the Beginning of Hanukkah
The Lithuanian Jewish Community is preparing to celebrate one of the most important holidays of the year, Hanukkah, which will begin this year on Thursday, December 10, and will end December 18. The beginning of the holiday is set for 4:00 P.M. when the first Hanukkah light is lit at the Choral Synagogue, Pylimo street no. 39, then at 5:00 P.M. the first light will be lit at the Lithuanian Jewish Community building in Vilnius. Hanukkah, which was mainly traditionally a family holiday, is celebrated at home by lighting a candle daily on the traditional nine-branched hanukiya candelabrum, more commonly known as the menorah..
Hanukkah is known as the Festival of Lights and the Jewish community as we light the candles sends out light and community to all the ethnic minority communities in Lithuania and to Jewish communities around the world. Light and music will accompany the ceremonial lighting of the first candle, with a laser-generated light show on the LJC building at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius, hopefully adding a new perspective on the building which housed the Tarbut Jewish gymnasium before the Holocaust. Because of virus fears, the lighting ceremony can also be observed via our website www.lzb.lt and on our facebook profile.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to join millions of other Jews around the world and join the #ShabesatHome initiative. The Lithuanian side of the initiative known as #Šabasnamuose will include the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium and the Vilnius, Kaunas, Panevėžys, Šiauliai, Ukmergė and Švenčionys communities are invited as well to join up by internet right now, Friday, November 6. Vilnius Jewish Religious Community chairman Simas Levinas, LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and her granddaughter Esther will also be on hand.
Social media announcements: #ManoŽydiškaKelionė #ŽydųKultūrosMetai #ShabesatHome #ŽyduKultūrosDiena #Šabasnamuose #KeepingItTogether #GeroŠabato
For more information, contact Dovilė Rūkaitė at projects@lzb.lt (before the sun goes down).
The Rokiškis Regional Museum hosted a conference called “The Jewish Community’s Contribution to the Cultural, Political and Economic Development of the North-Eastern Region of Lithuania during the Period of the First Republic of Lithuania” to mark the Year of the Vilna Gaon and Litvak History on Friday, September 4, 2020.
Kupiškis Ethnographic Museum specialist and historian Aušra Jonušytė in her presentation “The Jewish Community of Kupiškis” spoke about the former Jewish community in Kupiškis and their contribution to economic, social and political life in the Lithuanian town. She presented examples of friendship and fellowship between Jewish and Lithuanian families is safeguarding the town from fires.
Two books were presented at the conference: “Kupiškio žydų bendruomenė. Praeities ir dabarties sąsajos” [The Kupiškis Jewish Community: Connections between Past and Present] (2016) and “Kupiškio krašto žydų bendruomenės pastatai ir paminklai” [Buildings and Monuments of the Jewish Community of the Kupiškis Region] (2017). The audience appeared very interested in these books. Former Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon wrote the forewords to both books. Museum specialist and historian Aušra Jonušytė compiled these publications. She also talked about a new publication planned provisionally called “Žydų virtuvės valgiai, gaminti Kupiškyje” [Jewish Cuisine Made in Kupiškis] which will include input from LJC projects coordinator and Litvak cook Dovilė Rūkaitė, Natalja Cheifec and members of the Kaunas Jewish Community. Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman has also offered his help with the new book project, as has philanthropist Philip Shapiro.
by Sergejus Kanovičius. Photo by Evgenia Levin/Bernardinai.lt
Soon the Year of the Vilna Gaon will end: the news websites will stop carrying out the internet education plans dedicated to Jewish history and the school curricula will remain as they always were: impoverished, and with the suppression of history. Everything will depend on the teacher’s initiative, again. The statues to the Gaon and Tsemakh Shabad will stare out, with acid poured over them. Plaques will hang commemorating the “desk murderer” in Vilnius and the statue to a murderer of Jews will continue to stand in the center of Ukmergė, and schools will continue to be named in their honor. The center tasked with researching genocide will offer jobs to people who think the “Lithuanian Activist Front would have found it easy to agree with Zionists.” Only suppressing the fact the LAF helped those Zionists travel into the bosom of Abraham.
Virtual internet reality will never coincide with true reality, and the proposition of living in two worlds will continue to be proposed. The official one will soon mourn at Paneriai and on Rūdninkai square because that’s what’s required. Actually, the pandemic in the true sense of the word helped save a pile of money which would have been used for those pompous but failed events. I would ask, couldn’t the money saved be used to change the school curricula so that a student who reads a headline or title “The Vilna Gaon…” doesn’t have to search the internet to find out who he was and why he’s important?
The best surrogate education–sampling Jewish foods–takes place via the stomach, and via internet. In both cases the effect of learning is equal to the time spent by the learner chewing a bagel or reading about some shtetl lost to oblivion, sipping coffee while reading the screen. There’s no need to even raise the question of enduring value or the long-term effect…
On Sunday, September 6, 2020, the Lithuanian Jewish Community held a fun celebration of the European Day of Jewish Culture. Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and Community members, the Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Yosi Levy, Lithuanian Cultural Heritage Department director Vidmantas Bezaras and guests had a good time and attended the Hebrew language lesson provided by Vilnius Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymansium principal Ruth Reches. The public, invited by the LJC, came to celebrate the first Sunday in September by sampling Jewish treats made at the Bagel Shop Café, located on the first floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community building in Vilnius, a center of Litvak bagel culture.
The Bagel Shop Café presented paintings from Mark Kaplan’s collection during the event.
Participants also attended the lecture “Deification and Demonization of Jews: Anti-Semitic Superstitions in Society.”
The Lithuanian Jewish Community is continuing the tradition of marking the annual event European Days of Jewish Culture, this time for the fifth year, with a program of events in Vilnius scheduled for Sunday, September 6, 2020.
All parts of the event program are free and open to the public. The number of participants has been limited this year due to health concerns so please register as soon as possible.
For cooking lessons, register by sending an email to kavine@lzb.lt
For the Jerulita tour, register by sending an email to travel@jerulita.lt
To register by internet, click here.
The Amehaye summer camp has been holding camps for children for two weeks in the summer for several years now. The program was just as rich and interesting this year and the children failed to grow bored over two weeks of learning and friendship. Special attention is giver to Jewish traditions at the camp. In summer the main and most fun events take place in nature and everyone seemed to enjoy the games and sports. Educational discussions were also held in nature.
The program included a lesson on Israel and how to make humus. Some of the boys celebrated their mar mitzvahs at camp. The young campers also learned how to prepare other Jewish dishes from matzoh and how to make challa for Sabbath. They also celebrated Sabbath with the traditional rituals, prayer and lighting of candles.
A children’s psychologist visited the camp and delivered an interesting lesson. Campers also entered the chemistry laboratory and took part in incredible experiments. Two excursions also took place: one to the Safari Park in Anykščiai, Lithuania, and the other to Druskininkai, Lithuania, where the young people learned to make the Lithuanian pastry šakotis.
A bubble party was held the last day of camp and the official closing ceremony included releasing balloons into the sky after making a wish, followed by the Sabbath celebration.
Four-and-a-half-days and the results was, according to the local Akmenė newspaper Vienybė, “a great success.”
Participants and guests from Šiauliai and Vilnius said the same thing about the “Šolom, Akmenė” activities and events last week. There was the same positive reaction towards the Friday evening conference dedicated the remembering the shtetl, lessons on Sabbath traditions with treats and the concert.
There was a creative workshop for youth held before, with visiting and cleaning-up Jewish cemeteries in Vegeriai, Klykoliai, Viekšniai and Tryškiai, in a grand plan to digitize the grave epitaphs there.
The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community invites everyone to participate in “Sholom, Akmenė” events at the Akmenė Cultural Center (Sodo street no. 1, Akmenė, Lithuania) on July 24.
12:00 Conference “Memories of the Shtetl in Our Hearts”
Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community members Frida Šteinienė and Josifas Buršteinas will share their childhood memories, young participants at a creative workshop will speak about digitization efforts to record and preserve the Jewish cemeteries in the Akmenė region and Daumantas Todesas will share the secrets of making Sabbath treats. Also, Rita Ringienė will read excerpts from Indrė Daščioraitė’s work in 2001 recording the memories of Augustina Rušinaitė (1922-2007).
2:00 Jewish market (outside the Cultural Center)
The conference will be followed by a Jewish market set up by the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community showcasing traditional Litvak treats on offer, with haggling required. The organizers are promising a lot of fun at the market.
6:00 Sabbath concert
The Jewish music concert, already a tradition at the Akmenė Days celebrations, will be performed by students from the music schools in the Akmenė region and from the Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium in Vilnius. The concert will teach traditions of the Sabbath evening in artistic form.
All events are free and open to the public. Organizers are asking participants to adhere to the authorities’ current recommendations for preventing corona virus infection. The events will be filmed and photographed.
The Švenčionys region of Lithuania is a multicultural place where Lithuanians live alongside Poles, Russians, Belarussians, Jews and people of other ethnicities.
The Švenčionys Jewish Community was reconstituted in 2013. It is now headed by the energetic Švenčionys native Moshe Shapiro (aka Moisiejus Šapiro).
There was a large Jewish community living in the Švenčionys region in the period between the two world wars. In fact there were five synagogues operating there.
Jews there set up an herbal pharmaceuticals factory and different workshops in the center of the town of Švenčionys. Jewish effort, initiative and expertise were involved in all fields of production and business.
Just before quarantine was announced the Bagel Shop received an important visitor. The interview done several months ago remains just as important and perhaps even more so now. We spoke about the importance of ethnic food to Jews living in Lithuania and about a people’s right to have ethnic foods. We await the re-opening of the Bagel Shop Café with bated breath and hope to continue this conversation in front of an audience.
Bagel Shop Interview with Meghan Luckett, Cultural Attaché at the US embassy in Vilnius
Interview by Dovile Rūkaitė, LJC project manager.
Do you like bagels? What’s your favorite kind?
Yes, of course we love bagels. My favorite are everything bagels, we buy them at your bagel shop and in the market and eat them almost every week. We make bagel sandwiches with baked egg, spices and all kinds of stuff. One of our colleagues is a great cook, she makes us homemade bagels. Once we brought her some from Trader Joe’s and she made us excellent everything bagels. My wife is a great cook, she bakes sometimes, but we usually buy them because they are very good.
by Karolina Aleknavičė, 15min.lt
This year, 2020, has been declared the Year of the Vilna Gaon and Lithuanian Jewish History, and it’s a good opportunity to learn about the authentic culture which thrived for whole centuries in our neighborhood.
We spoke with Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum Jewish culture and identity exhibit coordinator Saulė Valiūnaitė, Vilnius University historian Dr. Akvilė Naudžiūnienė and Kėdainiai Multicultural Center director Audronė Pečiulytė about Lite, the Litvaks who lived here, Vilnius as the Jerusalem of the North and the Gaon, Eliyahu, who lived there.
Lithuanian Jewish History an Integral Part of Lithuanian History
Valiūnaitė told 15min.lt Lithuanians’ attitude towards Jewish history has changed over the last 15 years. “It’s inspiring that in Vilnius and other Lithuanian cities there are ever more initiatives appearing, and most importantly, a desire to commemorate the history and heritage of the Jews who lived there. Some do this by setting up commemorative markers, others by organizing events or writing books about the Jewish history of their cities and towns,” she said.
Mr. William Stern was born in Budapest in 1935; after the Nazi occupation of Hungary in March 1944, he and his family were taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They survived the War and emigrated to New York in 1952 where Mr Stern pursued studies first at Yeshiva University and subsequently at Harvard Law School.
It was during his stint at Harvard Law School that Mr Stern discovered the many risks and temptations which face a student when he leaves his home environment and suddenly becomes enmeshed in a totally new and different culture. He was shocked at seeing some of his friends shed their tradition and previous way of life in just a matter of months. Having married a young lady resident in London, Mr Stern moved to England in 1960. Early in his career, he established in London in 1971 a kosher canteen which welcomed students of Imperial College, located opposite his offices at Albert Court. This canteen has been going strong for the past 45 years and is presently catering to 30-35 Imperial College students every day of the academic year.
When he expanded his business to Lithuania, Mr Stern discovered the presence in Kaunas of approximately 100 Israeli medical students. He felt that during the 6-year period which medical studies require, many of these students might lose not only their Israeli but also their Jewish identity. In 2010, he established the Jewish Club which grew and developed over the years into the Jewish Centre Kaunas. Its aim is to provide the Jewish students in Kaunas a home away from home and prevent the loss of Jewish identity which otherwise might occur.
It’s no secret the quarantine has altered the rhythms and habits of our lives. It had been customary in the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community to celebrate all sorts of holidays and birthdays and to attend different events, educational activities and tours we organized, and simply to gather and talk at the Community building… Today that building stands quiet and empty…
Jews around the world were celebrating Passover when the quarantine began here in Lithuania. The Jews of Šiauliai were not able as we were in past years to come together and celebrate happily to the sound of Jewish melodies this beautiful spring holiday. This year each of celebrated separately at home. The Lithuanian Jewish Community provided home deliveries of matzo to all the regional Communities, so as the quarantine got under way the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community had to insure every member had the requisite matzo for the Passover seder table. Every member of the Community did receive safe delivery of boxes of matzo before the holiday began.
Despite disruption to the rhythm and conventions of daily life, we continue to provide crucial care to our seniors who were victims of the Nazis. Home-care workers continue to visit them and help them with their daily needs, insuring the safety of our elderly during these days so difficult for all of us.
The Kaunas Jewish Community has redirected efforts under quarantine and is using the telephone and internet to make sure members, especially the elderly, don’t feel cut off from the world.
Many Community members celebrate Sabbath together and miss face-to-face interaction at the Sabbath table. While conditions aren’t allowing that to resume yet, the Kaunas Jewish Community, in the spirit of fellowship and keeping with tradition, is offering a free Sabbath care basket to members so that everyone can celebrate the Sabbath at home. Now members can break challa bread alone but at the same time together. The care baskets contain more than just challa, though, and include other traditional Sabbath dinner dishes.
KJC chairman Gercas Žakas is pleased this initiative has received the approval of the Goodwill Foundation and the interest and support of so many KJC members. One member said: “It really does feel as if you aren’t alone, but are celebrating Sabbath together with the entire community.” Look for the Jewish communities in other cities and towns to do the same thing, Žakas predicted.
Judita Gliauberzonaitė, 42, chairwoman of the Vilnius Lithuanian Jerusalem Jewish community, recalls how her grandmother Cilė Žiburkienė every spring before Passover would cleanse the entire house so that, God forbid, not even a grain of flour would remain, which would mean leavened bread remained in the house, a sign recalling the enslavement of the Jews in the land of Egypt.
Jews around the world who count their history in millennia begin celebrating their Passover holiday on the 15th day in the month of Nisan (March or April), lasting for seven days in Israel and eight elsewhere in the world. Secular Jews who keep to tradition usually celebrate the first and last days of Passover, gathering as families for dinner.
Judita Gliauberzonaitė says more religious Jews attend synagogue every day of Passover.
Passover often coincides with Catholic Easter. This year it began on April 8 and continues till April 15.
Two weeks ago the Community accepted the challenge to distribute and home-deliver more matzo to more than 900 seniors living in Vilnius. Today we can truly say, mission accomplished.
It would have been mission impossible without the help of our volunteers who heeded the Community’s call for help. We had from 3 to 4 teams of Community staff and volunteers on the street daily.
The distribution of matzo took place so very smoothly because we were able to harness so many who offered to help.
A mitzvah should be done quietly and without fanfare, but the Community has a right to know who its heroes are.
Despite the complicated time in the world, the dates assigned by the Torah to the holidays don’t change and they are part of the history and story of the Jewish people. Passover is one of the main Jewish holy days. Over the days of Passover Jews remember their historic liberation from slavery.
During these difficult days I wish you patience, the love of those around you and endurance. Maintain hygienic requirements and adhere to the safety measures as we fight the corona virus.
Gennady Kofman, chairman
Panevėžys Jewish Community
