The Šiauliai Jewish Community marked the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide September 23. Students from the Saulius Sondeckas Art Gymnasium in Šiauliai began the event with a musical performance.
Deputy mayor Justinas Švėgžda attended. After the ceremony a silent procession moved from the site of the gate of the first ghetto (Caucasus) to the monument marking the gate of the second ghetto (Trakai).
Last Tuesday, September 22, a Road of Memory event and procession took place in Pabradė in the Švenčionys region to mark the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide (actually on September 23). A group of students from the 7th and 8th grades, their teachers from Rytas school in Pabradė and members of the community walked to the Holocaust commemoration site in Pabradė.
The event was organized by the Pabradė Culture Center in concert with the Pabradė aldermanship and chairman Moshe Shapiro of the Švenčionys Jewish Community.
The Švenčionys Jewish Community invites the public to remember the victims of the Holocaust and to mark the anniversary of the liquidation of the Švenčionys ghetto on October 4. Community and friends will gather at 11:00 A.M. on Sunday, October 4 at the Menorah statue in the Švenčionys city park. At noon there will be a commemoration at the mass grave in Platumai village in the Švenčionėliai aldermanship.
Members of the Panevėžys Jewish Community including chairman Gennady Kofman marked the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide by attending a screening at the Menas Theater of the Lithuanian film Getas about the Vilnius ghetto. This special screening of the 2013 film was preceded by a performance called Shameful River in the theater’s courtyard.
The Klaipėda Jewish Community invites the general public to tour the exhibit Voices of the Departed before the exhibit ends November 30. The exhibit highlights the old Jewish cemetery in the Lithuanian port city, and the cemetery hosts the exhibit. It’s located at Žiedų alley no. 3, Klaipėda. Tours are available in Lithuanian, German and English. For more information, call 0 650 21335.
The Jewish song and dance group Fayerlakh performed at the Garden of Cultures 2026 event in Kaunas this month which showcases Lithuanian ethnic cultures. Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas and other Community members spoke to the audience as well on Jewish culture and its place in the history of Kaunas.
Historian and translator Saulė Valiūnaitė is offering a Yiddish language course for adult beginners. The language of instruction is Lithuanian. The course consists of 15 classes and costs €150 per person. The class begins at 6:00 P.M. Thursday, October 1, and will run weekly on Thursdays. They’ll be held at the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium, Kraševskio street no. 5, Vilnius. For more information or to register, write saule.valiunaite@gmail.com.
According to the Lithuanian History Institute, Valiūnaitė defended her dissertation called “Yiddishist Women and Their Contribution to the Formation and Preservation of Secular Jewishness in Interwar Vilnius” at Vilnius University in 2025. Since 2025 she is a researcher at the Department of 19th Century History of the Lithuanian History Institute. Her main areas of research interests are history of Vilner Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries, Jewish gender studies and the political and cultural history of Yiddishism, according to the Lithuanian History Institute.
We know the Great Synagogue in Vilnius was mainly subterranean, because of Christian restrictions limiting the height of houses of prayer of other confessions. Until now, we only had period illustrations of the interior, lost when the shul damaged by Nazi bombardment was demolished by the Soviets in the 1950s. For about a decade now archaeologists from the Israeli Antiquities Authority in cooperation with Lithuanian archaeologists from the Department of Cultural Heritage have been excavating the Shulhoyf, and last year, directed by Jon Seligman of the Israel Antiquities Authority (there from 205) and Justinas Račas and Zenonas Baubonis of the Lithuanian Cultural Heritage Salvage Group (at the dig since 2018), they reached the floor of the main hall and uncovered most of the meter-high bimah, the central point in the main hall.
Their discoveries have inspired an exhibit of artworks by Lithuanian Eglė Ridikaitė called Depositions at the St. George the Martyr Church, K. Sirvydo street no. 4, in Vilnius, which opened May 14 and runs till October 3. Admission is from 5 to 10 euros and is payable by card only.
“Eglė Ridikaitė’s exhibition, through an unexpected artistic gesture, weaves together sites of faith, painful historical experiences, and a sense of present vulnerability. With striking clarity, serenity, and simplicity, Depositions unfolds as a silent yet conceptually dense narrative about the city. It invites us to experience, simultaneously, the layered histories of prewar Jewish and Christian Vilnius, while tracing processes of survival and extinction, life and its erasure in memory.
The first Sabbath Table to Remember Jewish History exhibit as part of the Children of the Holocaust: Lighting Up the Shadows of Lithuanian History project took place at the Pabradė Culture Center last week. The exhibit will be a changeable one depending on the decisions and sensibilities of the designers and exhibit item creators. This time the Sabbath table was laden with pomegranates, figs, apples and challa.
Residents of Pabradė in eastern Lithuania, visitors and local students and teachers attended the event. Švenčionys Jewish Community chairman Moshe Shapiro welcomes the attendees, followed by a panel discussion moderated by Sholem Alechem ORT Gymnasium students, moderated by Algis Davidavičius, who discussed local history, memory and modern forms of commemoration. Then visitors learned about Sabbath traditions, sampled traditional dishes and attended a Jewish cloth-dying workshop.
The Sabbath Table to Remember Jewish History exhibition is the fruit of a two-year meaningful journey during which brave and knowledge-thirsty students from Vilnius and Palanga and their teachers dove into live research on local Jewish history. The young people conducted tours, creative workshops, celebrated Purim and Sabbath together, marked commemorative dates, visited synagogue and spoke with representatives from the Palanga, Vilnius, Darbėn and Israeli Jewish communities.
The Sabbath begins at 7:28 P.M. on Friday, September 18, and concludes at 8:19 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit and prayers recited by or before 7:10 P.M. and completed before sunset at 7:28 P.M. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, begins at sundown on Sunday. This Wednesday, September 23, is the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide, a commemorative day on the Lithuanian calendar.
The Šiauliai District Jewish Community sincerely congratulates Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky on the occasion of her birthday!
May Success never leave you, accompanied by Litvak Strength!
Respectfully,
Šiauliai District Jewish Community
The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to mark the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide with us, remembering the more than 200,000 victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania, at the mass murder site in Ponar just outside Vilnius.
The LJC is providing transportation for those wishing to make the short trip. Please register by 12 noon on September 22 by sending an email to info@lzb.lt containing your full name and the purpose of the email. The bus will leave from the LJC at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius at 11:45 A.M. sharp on September 23. If you arrive late you’ll miss the bus.
Time: 12:30 P.M., Wednesday, September 23
Place: Ponar Memorial Complex, Memorialo street no. 15 aka Agrastų street no. 15, Vilnius
The Šiauliai District Jewish Community invites you to a ceremony to mark the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide at the site of the former first ghetto gates at 11:00 A.M. on Wednesday, September 23. There will then be a procession to the second ghetto gates.
Time: 11:00 A.M., Wednesday, September 23
Place: Memorial marking gates of first ghetto at the intersection of Traku and Ezero streets, Righteous Gentile Square, Šiauliai
The Droga Dō chamber concert series is dedicated to the memory of the escape route Polish and Lithuanian Jews took to Japan during the Holocaust, and to Japanese ambassador and Righteous Gentile Chiune Sugihara who made it possible, saving thousands of Jews. Dō (Dou, Doo) means “way” in Japanese, as does droga in Polish.
Droga Dō will be performed at the Kaunas State Philharmonic on September 19 with works by Toru Takemitsu, Dai Fujikura, Kishio Kirao, Mieczysław Weinberg, Władysław Szpilman, Aleksander Tansman, Aleksandr Veprik, Joseph Achron and others. For more information, click here. For information in Lithuanian and to purchase tickets, click here.
Time: 5:00 P.M., Saturday, September 19
Place: Kaunas State Philharmonic, E. Ožeškienės no. 12, Kaunas
A gathering of members of the Panevėžys Jewish Community and family, friends and guests celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, last week at the Community building in the northern Lithuanian city with traditional dishes prepared by members. This year the start of Rosh Hashanah coincided with the onset of Sabbath and the celebration began with the lighting of candles and intonation of prayers.
Community member Nerijus Jakštonis, an accomplished trumpet musician, blew a small shofar horn, seen in photographs below. Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman spoke about what the holiday means and the ten-day period before Yom Kippur for self-reflection, taking responsibility for one’s past and future actions and reconciliation.
Last weekend the Jewish song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh delighted the audience at the Kaunas Gardens 2026 festival in Kaunas with the collective’s unique program of Jewish music and movement. They’re scheduled to perform again next Sunday, September 20, in Vilnius at Kudirka Square outside Government House in central Vilnius as part of the Ethnic Fair held annually along Gediminas prospect. The concert starts at 2:00 P.M. Sunday and is free and open to the public.
B”H
This Friday–the 11th of September–evening, at sunset when Rosh Ha’Shonoh begins, we usher in a New Year.
In Judaism a New Year is not just a new cycle of time, it represents a unique, unparalleled, new spiritual entity, with unprecedented fresh opportunities for each and every one of us. As reflected in our prayers on Rosh Ha’Shonoh ” …This day is the Beginning of Your work” (actions). This year in our calendar is 5787. 87 is the numerical equivalent of the Hebrew word for fine-gold “poz” (pei zayin), reminding us that this year we have an exceptional golden opportunity, for positive, constructive change and transformation.
The holy Master of the Good Name Rebbe Yisroel Baal Shem Tov (1698-1760), teaches us that nothing in the world, even the seemingly most insignificant thing, is random. Everything without exception is Guided by Divine Particular Providence. It follows that everything we see or hear in the world, contains a moral and spiritual lesson for us, also as an individual. It follows, that the fact that Rosh Ha’Shonoh this year begins on and follows “11th of September” must be communicating a timely inspirational teaching and life-lesson to us. “11th of September” reminds us of, and represents, destruction. Rosh Ha’Shonoh is about “Binyan Ha’Malchus,” Building a new and fresh, better world.
However deep the destruction might be, we can rebuild, even better.
This coming year we can and need to utilize the new golden opportunities that are being presented to us, wisely, to build and construct brick by brick, a better self, and a better world for Everyone.
With my very best wishes for a Good, Sweet and Meaningful New Year!
Kesivoh V’Chasimoh Tovoh!
Gut Shabbes! Gut Yom Tov! Shabbat Shalom! Chag Sameach!
Natalja Cheifec continues her internet lecture series and discussion club with a lecture on Yom Kippur this Thursday evening.
Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement, one of the most important Jewish holidays, celebrated on the tenth day of Tishrei following ten days of repentance after Rosh Hashanah. It is a day of fasting, prayer and reflection on the year past and the year to come, seeking forgiveness for oneself and others. On this day the Book of Life is opened where entries began on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, on our fates for the next year.
To receive zoom credentials and participate, click here.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Thursday, September 17
Place: internet