The Bagel Shop Café baked 75 small and large loaves of challa bread Friday evening as part of the world Shabbos Project. The Sabbath on October 22 was special. The Lithuanian Jewish Community invited everyone young and old to bake challa together with the world Jewish community. Members, friends and a ton of children gathered at the Bagel Shop Café, had fun making and baking challa, and were treated to a performance by the Fayerlakh ensemble. We counted around 75 loaves. Snapshots below.
As the weather turns colder out, it’s almost natural for us to retire to our kitchens and engage in baking bread. For most of us this is a solitary vocation, perhaps a weekly one, with few around us to enjoy the pleasing aroma of baking bread. This year as in past, the Shabbos Project is inviting people around the world to bake Sabbath challa bread together, if only in spirit. The Bagel Shop Café will host a challa-bread-making event at 5:00 P.M. on Friday, October 22, as part of this world-wide project connecting millions of people in over 1,600. At 6:00 P.M. the Fayerlakh ensemble will perform for participants at that event.
More information here.
It’s encouraging to see parents and children returning to spend time at the Community. At one recent meeting at the Bagel Shop Café the children presented their works in clay, held the premiere of a film they made and starred in and performed music, while the mothers made challa bread.
Larisa Vyšniauskienė, the director of the Fayerlakh ensemble, chimed in during the musical part of the program and spoke about the ensemble’s musical career which has spanned a half century now.
Avital Libman, coordinator of children’s and youth programs, passed on the happy news that the Ilan and Knafaim Clubs will now be open every day to young people for fun and productive after-school activities.
Meanwhile, weekly art activities continue led by Raimondas Savickas, and the seniors’ club Abi Men Zet Zich carries on as usual.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community’s song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh recently performed at the Peretocze festival held annually in the vast Belovezha forest which was once part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and now spans large parts of eastern Poland and western Belarus.
Photographs from the event can be found here.
The second “Common Language of the Peoples” festival of ethnic minority amateur song and dance groups has taken place in the city of Švenčionėliai, Lithuania, and the Fayerlakh Jewish song and dance collective directed by Larisa Vyšniauskienė participated.
The second annual festival took place June 23, supported by Lithuania’s Ethnic Minorities Department.
The Culture Center of the City of Švenčionėliai presented cakes and wreaths of wild flowers to all groups participating in the festival.
The representatives of different ethnic groups from Lithuania presented folk costumes and spoke about the characteristics of their ethnic group and their special foods.
The audience applauded every group heavily and the festival again demonstrated the need for more such ethnic community events.
Photo: Pinchos Fridberg, the only Jew left in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius who was born there before the Nazis invaded in 1941. By Brendan Hoffman for the New York Times.
by professor Pinchos Fridberg, an alter vilner id [an old Jew born and raised in Vilnius]
“Rebe, will there ever come a time when the words Vilne and Yidish will be inseparable again?”
“Saydn nor mit Meshiakh’n ineinem.” [Not unless it comes with the Messiah.]
Introduction
The article “Как это делалось ин Вилнэ…” [This Is How It Was Done in Vilne] became the main feature for issue no. 505 of the international magazine “Мы Здесь” [We Are Here] in 2015. More than 7,000 people read it, and I began receiving letters from people whom I didn’t know.
The largest Russian-language weekly newspaper in Lithuania “Обзор” [Review] reprinted this article on its website on March 8, 2021.
The article concerns the history of Jewish Vilnius.
I think it might be interesting to non-Russian-language readers as well. *
“This is How It Was Done in Vilne…”
As I was putting my archive in order, I came across a small program for a concert to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Jewish volunteer collectives. This program is more than half a calendrical century old. I think the reader might be interested to see “how it was done in Vilne.” The program contains over 30 photographs. I will present a few of them. I believe it has long been time for them to be revived on the wider internet.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community wishes all Community members a Happy Passover! Take a listen to the musical greetings from the Fayerlakh Jewish song and dance ensemble below.
Fayerlakh ensemble musician Igoris Dolgopolovas has died. The Lithuanian Jewish Community and members of the Fayerlakh Jewish song and dance ensemble extend our deepest condolences to his family and friends.
Photo: Faina Kukliansky, by Vidmantas Balkūnas, courtesy 15min.lt
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky remembers January 13. Lithuanian Jews, who restored their community finally 30 years ago after decades of restrictions, took part in events in those days [in 1991] Nowadays when they talk about the struggle for freedom, members of the community emphasize the greatest gift: the opportunity to speak freely.
What do you remember personally about that fateful night at the TV tower, the Lithuanian Radio and Television building and the parliament? What does the Jewish community remember about these events?
Jews did the same thing as everyone else in Lithuania. We have collected the recollections of our community members of that fateful night. They watched the television broadcast until it was cut off and they went to the barricades, in Vilnius but also in Kaunas and other cities.
We were there where the majority of Lithuania was. I remember when I travelled from Varėna during that time and saw the road full of tanks. At that time I had an elderly guest from America who said he was seeing tanks for the first time in his life.
On that particular night my friends and I–all of us were together with our young children–followed events, held vigil, waiting for our husbands who were there in the crowd by the barricades or who were doing their job as doctors.
My children are now grown up and always remember that night and the tension. It wasn’t clear what would happen and the tanks were already in place in the city. We didn’t have any information, we had seen the final frame when E. Bučelytė had to quit the [television] studio. We learned that night from medics that there were dead and wounded people.
by Vytautas Bruveris, lrytas.lt
The country is marking the end of the ceremoniously declared Year of the Vilna Gaon and Litvak History, while the Lithuanian Jewish Community is looking at its front door and thinking it might have to leave its home. Because disagreements with state institutions are driving the Community from its longtime building in the center of the Lithuanian capital, located near the remains of Jewish Vilna and the city’s working synagogue.
Bailiffs and bricklayers in broad daylight have walled off one of the corridors in the building housing the LJC. This is the grotesque turn of events these days resulting from continuing disagreements between the LJC and the Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum along with the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture. And even before this there were also episodes which seem rather odd, for example, letters from the museum to the members of the executive board of the LJC with accusations against the latter’s leadership, attempting to put political pressure directly upon the ethnic community/
With the new wall built, the LJC is now deciding on its future course: whether to dive headlong into legal battles, or simply pack its bags and hit the street. So why is all this happening? Because of disputes on how to share the courtyard which both the museum and the LJC, housed in the same building, claim. Instead of trying to act as moderator and as a moderating force, the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture has done the opposite. The neighbors are there next to each other, but separate.
The Fayerlakh song and dance ensemble invites children aged 6-12 to attend dance studio classes at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius . For more information, call Liza at 868473592 or Larisa at 868779309
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.
Happy birthday to Eta Gurvčiūtė as she turns 100. Lithuanian Jewish Community member Eta Gurvčiūtė turned 100 April 27. Clear of mind, with no health complaints and her beautiful smile, she is busy receiving greetings and congratulations today. She was graduated from the Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium before World War II.
Many of our other seniors remember Eta because she volunteered at the medical center of the LJC for so many years, later becoming a client herself. She spends her time these days at the Social Care House for Seniors in Vilnius now.
To celebrate her milestone, the LJC is planning a Fayerlakh concert for everyone at her senior citizens’ home. ALthough she’s celebrating her birthday under strict quarantine at the senior center, the Lithuanian Jewish Center tried to send her a present anyway. We managed to have a vase of flowers and a card delivered.
During Passover this year the members of the Fayerlakh song and dance group didn’t meet for seder or perform a concert, but they did sing Next Year in Jerusalem together from their homes.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community, the Sababa Jewish youth club and the song and dance group Fayerlakh invite children to the “Party of Ahasuerus” Purim carnival. The program includes Purim plays, a costume parade, traditional foods and shalahmones, or Purim baskets. Queen Esther requests children come dressed in costume or at least wearing a mask. Registration is required before March 6 by calling Sofja at 8 601 46656 or sending an email to sofja@lzb.lt The event will begin at 3:00 P.M. on March 8 on the third floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Salvija kindergarten are holding a Hanukkah celebration for the youngest members of the community at 5:00 P.M. on Thursday, December 19 at the Lithuanian Jewish Community. The Fayerlakh ensemble and children from Salvija will perform and there will be Hanukkah games, doughnuts and gifts. To find out more or to register, call 8 678 81 514.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community invited members and members of the Gesher, Kavaret and Rikudey Am Clubs as well as students from the Raimondas Savickas Art Studio and from the Community’s Hebrew classes to come celebrate two holidays–Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot–at once on October 10. Žana Skudovičienė organized and conducted the festivities, delivering a thank-you speech at the beginning to the heads of the clubs, studio and classes. Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky gave holiday greetings to all participants and spoke about the preceding year, 5779, saying the Community had a lot to be proud of but that there is always room for improvement. The performance by the Fayerlakh group enhanced the evening and made it complete.
On Sunday, October 20, the Dubi, Ilan and Mishpoca Clubs invite children to an evening of dance with Jelizaveta Volynskaja together with tiny dancers from the Fayerlakh song and dance ensemble. From October 28 to October 31 children aged 7 to 12 are invited to the Amehaye Fall Camp at the Lithuanian Jewish Community. Registration is required. Please call Sofja at 8 601 46656 or write her at sofja@lzb.lt to register or for more information. An on-line registration form for the camp is posted here: