Litvaks

Shalom (from Birzh)

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Executive board of Association of Biržai Firefighters, 1936. First person sitting on left: Boruch Michelson. Third seated from left: G. Belickas. First standing from left: S. Chaitas. Fifth from left standing: I. Masas. Photo courtesy Sėla Museum.

by Borisas Januševičius

This is a greeting among Jews. It is the wish for peace, spiritual peace and security. Lithuanian “sveikas” corresponds to “shalom aleichem,” peace to you [sic]. I heard these types of greetings often in my childhood. Parents—neighbors, Jews—of my friends (in Jewish jargon khebra: meydal and bakhur) used to use them. We also used this jargon, Kučinskų Aliukas, Kėkštų Zenka, Karpuškų Liolė and others, including me. Our chebra, our friends of darker extraction have been lying in the ground in Pakamponys for 75 years now. Their memory is fading fast into the past.

Conflicted Thoughts against the Backdrop of Noble Action

For some time now I have been watching the burgeoning interest in the Jews who lived so numerously in Biržai between the wars. Their mysterious codes are deciphered, projects are planned and carried out and the attempt is made to provide a background of international significance to this activity. The Israeli ambassador, the deputy US ambassador, Lithuania’s chief rabbi [sic], the chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, the president of the Brooklyn Synagogue, Lithuanian members of parliament, Kaunas archbishop Lionginas Virbalas, representatives of the Jewish communities of certain cities and many others all rushed to Biržai. The men of Biržai donned Jewish “yarmulkes.” The sorrowful hymn of the cantor rang out across the Jewish cemetery. Some of the guests only then learned that there is a place called Biržai in this world with its unique Jewish and Karaite cemetery.

Unfortunately, Sheftel Melamed was not among those who turned, who used to call himself the only surviving Jew in Biržai. Melamed died more than a year ago. Sheftel and his brother went to Russia in June of 1941 and that’s how they survived. When he came to his hometown in 1945 he didn’t find his parents’ home on Vytauto street, it had burned down. Neither did he find the relatives he had left here four years earlieir. His mother Paya, his father Peisach and his brother Hirsh were shot in Pakamponys.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Kaunas Jewish Community Celebration

The Kaunas Jewish Community send their greetings for the New Year and Hanukkah, both of which members celebrated at a number of locations in Kaunas.

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Festivities included lighting candles together, a violin and saxophone concert, a pancake-eating contest and potato pancakes and doughnuts for all.

Holiday celebrations were organized using Goodwill Foundation and LJC Social Program funds.

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Challenges of History after the Hanukkah Miracle

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Dr. Aušra Pažėraitė

The discussion rages on on the social networks about the wisdom or folly of lighting large menorah displays in non-Jewish cities, whether or not to say the blessing, and how much authentically Jewish is really left in the holiday of Christmukkah, as images of square and overturned Christmas trees with branches forming menorahs are exchanged. In respect to all this, we could turn back again to the historical opposition between Greek and Jew and the Jewish victory. The more salient aspect today, though, having in mind the different possible interactions of a religious or ethnic minority with the dominant host culture, is the history of what happened “Post-Hanukkah.”

It’s ironic that, as researcher Erich Gruen points out, after the Hasmoneans won the independence of the state of Judea and established a royal dynasty, and after they established the Torah as the law of the land (or constitution), the Hellenization of the country only increased, and accelerated throughout the period of the kingdom. Martin Hengel also believes the Judaism of Judea in the period was highly Hellenized, although he tries to frame it within “the conflict between the Judaism of Palestine and the spirit of the age of Hellenism” and is forced to explain the crisis of the Maccabee era did lead to a reaction in Judea which put a halt to syncretism, channeled intellectual activities to Torah study and blocked any criticism of the cult and the law. As many authors note, the influence of Hellenism in Judea is obvious, while literature written in the Land of Israel clearly differs from that written in the Diaspora. There Hellenistic literature was neither completely assimilated, nor was it entirely rejected. (As an analogue one might think about contemporary Israel which includes a completely modern secularism differing in none of its essentials from that of the West, and also extremely segregated religious communities.)

Historian Louis H. Feldman presents different artifacts discovered by archaeologists in the Land of Israel from Hellenistic times. Among them are representations of different Greek gods and figures in synagogues, private homes and other locations. Feldman says, based on Rab Gamaliel (first century CE) in the mishnah tractate Avoda Zara, the rabbis of the period weren’t frightened of the pagan deities and didn’t believe they could somehow engage Jews in the pagan cults. Gamaliel says the bath h went to was not the ornament of Aphrodite, but on the contrary, Aphrodite was the ornament of the bath, a mere decoration. This view might have been the one prevailing among the sages of Judea at the time, namely, that the use of Greek gods and other Greek elements in daily life was a degradation of these gods, in modern terms perhaps their “commodification,” and in no way their worship. Feldman shows third-century rabbi Yohan was likewise unopposed to mosaics portraying Aphrodite.

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Remembering Osip Mandelstam, Litvak Poet, 125 Years after His Birth

Šiemet minimos 125-osios garsaus poeto, litvako Osipo Mandelštamo gimimo metinės

This year marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of famous Litvak poet Osip Mandelshtam. At the LJC’s Mini Limmud conference held in November, one of the lectures was dedicated to the work of the famous poet. The lecture was by Ellena Suodienė, who is the author of 16 books of poetry and defended her doctoral thesis on the Russian poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva. Suodienė was awarded the Golden Quill diploma of the European Arts and Literature Institute and taught at the Kaunas Liberal Arts Faculty of Vilnius University until the year 2000. She published three books of poetry while she was teaching. She is the currently the hostess of the Nadezhda Russian Meeting Club in Kaunas. Suodienė has dedicated much of her time and research to the life and work of Osip Mandelstam and even wrote a poem about him.

On the 125th anniversary of his birth we are again reminded Osip Mandelstam is one of the most famous Litvaks on the world stage. Many remember him as a brilliant poet who suffered under the persecution of the Stalin regime. Suodienė calls him a martyr to poetry.

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Holiday Greetings from Gediminas Kirkilas

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Deputy speaker of parliament and former prime minister Gediminas Kirkilas sends holiday greetings to the Lithuanian Jewish Community. Unofficial translation:

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

I greet you on the occasion of the coming holiday, the most beautiful holiday of the year and the coming New Year, 2017. This is a special time to remember all of you, to take joy in our having spoken, shared, sympathized and learned from one another. This is a time for sincere and heartfelt greetings. May harmony prevail in your home, may your hearts be filled with warmth and may success follow upon your new endeavors.

Yours,

[signed]
Gediminas Kirkilas,
deputy speaker,
chairman of the European Affairs Committee
Lithuanian Parliament

Discover, Recognize, Accept

One beautiful December afternoon director Vida Pulkauninkienė and members of the Dukstyna Tolerance Education Center travelled to Vilnius to meet with Jewish Community member Geršonas Taicas. The knowledgeable Taicas took them on a tour of the Vilnius Old Town and told them about famous Jewish personalities.

During the walking tour Taicas took them to the remnants of the old city wall where in the early 17th century the Bastillion was built at the Subocz Gate. This is a defensive fortification consisting of a tower, an artillery section and a tunnel connecting them. From there they walked to a location where the city and its surrounding areas are clearly visible and took in the view.

On Strazdelio street they saw the building where the Romm publishing house operated.

They also saw the building where Jascha Heifetz, the famous 20th century violinist, studied.

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New York Times: Ponar Top Science Story in 2016

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Jewish forced laborers dug a tunnel from this holding pit near Vilnius, Lithuania, into the surrounding forest. Photo: Ezra Wolfinger for NOVA

In a look back at the top science stories of 2016, the New York Times science desk included non-invasive archaeology last summer at Ponar outside Vilnius. In “Evidence of a Great Escape” (not to be confused with The Great Escape at Stalag Luft III in Poland), New York Times science writer Nicholas St. Fleur talks about the discoveries made there.

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In 1943, the Nazis forced 80 Lithuanian Jews to dig up the rotting bodies of their murdered neighbors, pile them on top of wood and burn them.

They were then ordered to mix the ashes with sand and bury the remains so no one would know of the atrocities committed at Ponar, an extermination site where the Nazis executed more than 100,000 people.

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Panevėžys and Ukmergė Jewish Communities Celebrate Hanukkah

On December 30 the Panevėžys City and Ukmergė Regional Jewish Communities celebrated Hanukkah together at the restaurant Vakarinė žara, where they have held such celebrations for several years now. The event was heavily attended by members of both communities, their families and honored guests, including Panevėžys mayor Rytis Račkauskas, Panevėžys Jewish Community patron Yuri Grafman, the historian Vidmantas Janukonis and city council members Galina Kuzmienė and Alfonsas Petrauskas, among others. Attendees appeared to have a wonderful time and there was much conversation and many greetings. Participants enjoyed traditional Hanukkah treats including latkes and doughnuts.

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Greetings from Japan

Mr. Takanobu Fuchikami, the mayor of Tsuruga, Japan, sends holiday and New Year’s greetings to the Lithuanian Jewish Community. Tsuruga is a Japanese port city which received Jewish refugees issued transit visas by Japan’s consul in Kaunas, Lithuania, Righteous Gentile Chiune Sugihara.

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Hanukkah at Choral Synagogue

Chanukos šventė Vilniaus Choralinėje sinagogoje 2016

The Hanukkah celebration at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius yesterday was both moving and fun with many esteemed guests and traditional Hanukkah foods including latkes and doughnuts. A warm and happy atmosphere prevailed and the klezmer group Rakija Klezmer Orkestar contributed to the festive mood with great performances of Jewish song. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky greeted celebrants of the Hanukkah miracle. The miracle of this year’s Hanukkah, she said, was Lithuanians celebrating the Jewish holiday with Jews at the synagogue and Lithuanians and people of other ethnicities performing Jewish music there. It is a blessing to be able to celebrate together with the Jewish community in one’s own land, she said.

Lithuanian parliamentary speaker Pranckietis, Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon, Lithuanian ambassador to Israel Bagdonas and US embassy deputy chief of mission Solomon attended.

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Snapshots available here.

Video footage available here and here courtesy of Amit Belaitė.

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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Happy Birthday to Basia Šragienė!

Kauno žydų bendruomenė sveikina savo narę Basią Šragienę su gimtadieniu

Members of the Hesed Club of the Kaunas Jewish Community celebrated Basia Šragienė’s birthday last week and everyone had a great time. The always youthful and energetic Šragienė is one of the Kaunas Jewish Community’s longest-standing members. For many she sets an example with her energy, resolution, selflessness, caring and warm conversation.

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Over the years she has participated in and even organized many Kaunas Jewish Community events and activities including people from across the age spectrum and with different interests. As a former medical doctor she also provides useful advice to those who seek it. Those who gathered to celebrate her birthday remembered these and all her other wonderful features in their greetings to the birthday girl. Everyone was pleasantly surprised as well at the event by Kaunas Jewish Community member Stasys Makštutis, who arrived suddenly and unexpectedly from Lyons where he studies and gave a moving and tantalizing concert on clarinet.

Mazel tov!

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.

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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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/

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.

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!