The first light of Hanukkah will be lit at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius with Rabbi Aharon Shmuel Baskin, singing, dancing, Hanukkah treats and smiles. Stay tuned for more details.
Everyone is invited. The event starts at 6:00 P.M. on December 7 at the Choral Synagogue, Pylimo street no. 39, Vilnius.
The Šiauliai Jewish Community is holding a half-day photography exhibit at the wooden synagogue in Pakruojis on November 20 detailing the painful past of the Jewish people and current events.
The first part of the exhibit is a joint project between the Šiauliai Religious Jewish Community and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to mark the 80th anniversary of the Kinder Aktion or children’s mass murder operation at the Šiauliai ghetto. It only contains a small number of photographs of victims conserved by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.
The second section features the 240 people taken hostage by Hamas and held in the Gaza Strip, including fathers, mothers, children, teenagers, the elderly and the disabled.
Time: 11:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., Monday, November 20
Place: Pakruojis synagogue, Kranto street no. 8, Pakruojis, Lithuania
DJ A, also known as Anuška, will display her skills at the Darna Festival to celebrate the International Day of Tolerance at the Lithuanian Jewish Community on Thursday, November 16. The festival is free and open to the public and begins at 6:30 P.M.
Philosopher and ethics teacher Algirdas Davidavičius will share his ideas about harmony and tolerance at the Darna Festival to celebrate International Day of Tolerance at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius on Thursday, November 16.
“At the current time it isn’t sufficient for being a good person to speak abstractedly of good behavior, to criticize or comment on military actions from a safe distance. We are all moral if not actual soldiers for a better common culture. Each one of us must choose which values we defend, because if we don’t defend them we will become hostages and participants of regimes of superstitious fear and violence,” Davidavičius said.
The Darna Festival opens at 6:30 P.M. and is free and open to the public.
One Dutch newspaper called them the Dream Duo. Violinist Dalia Dėdinskaitė and cellist Gleb Pyšniak’s Duettissimo have been performing since 2009 and have earned a name for themselves as one of the most remarkable groups of young people performing classical music in Lithuania.
They’re performing as part of the Darna Festival to celebrate the International Day of Tolerance at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius Thursday, November 16. The festival starts at 6:30 P.M. and is free and open to the general public.
We wish Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community member Ieva Rafael a very happy birthday. Since the Šiauliai Jewish Community was formed in Šiauliai in December of 1988, Ieva has been an active participant in community life and a member of the board of executives. Along with everything else she’s done for the Šiauliai Jewish Community, she’s also been responsible for the organization’s bookkeeping over its entire existence.
We wish Ieva endless health, happiness, joy, unceasing energy and that all her dreams come true. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
We are sad to report the death of Boris Pojurovskis in September. He was born in 1936. We extend our deepest condolences to his wife, daughter Eleonora and grandson Artūras as well as to his many other relatives and friends.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and Cvi Parkas are holding the third annual Darna Festival to celebrate the International Day of Tolerance tomorrow, November 16, with a series of readings and musical performances.
The classical music group Duo Andersson, Julija Andersson on violin and brother Paulius on piano, will present a series of rarely-heard classical and contemporary works by Lera Auerbach, Jewish Lithuanian composer Anatolijus Šenderovas and Philip Glass in the Jascha Heifetz Hall on the third floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. The Darna Festival is free and open to the public.
Australian composer and musician Skye Magnus will perform her musical works at the Darna Festival on Thursday, November 16, at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. Her music touches on themes of love, misfortune, the spirit and God. The festival starts at 6:30 P.M.
The Ukrainian folklore ensemble Namysto will perform first in a series of concerts at the Lithuanian Jewish Community and Cvi Parkas’s third annual Darna Festival to celebrate the International Day of Tolerance.
Namysto was formed in Vilnius in 2019 by a group who performed Ukrainian folk songs in their free time. They’ve since expanded their repertoire with folk music expeditions to Polesia, the Steppe and the central Dnieper River region.
The festival starts at 6:30 P.M. on Thursday, November 16, at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius.
Musician and piano master Darius Mažintas will perform at the Darna Festival to celebrate the International Day of Tolerance on November 16. The program includes a musical composition by Ryuichi Sakamoto from his album BTTB and “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.”
The Darna Festival starts at 6:30 P.M. Thursday at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. For more information, click here.
#Atmintis #Memory #AEPJ
The Darna Festival happening this Thursday, November 16, to celebrate the International Day of Tolerance will feature three exceptional photography exhibits featuring work by Antanas Sutkus, Andrey Kezzyn and Bartosz Frątczak. All festival events and performances are free and open to the public.
Time: 6:30 P.M., Thursday, November 16
Place: Third floor, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius
Antanas Sutkus is considered one of the top Lithuanian photographers of the 20th century. Andrey Kezzyn over the past decade has been staging theatrical photographs with actors in costume, and is a stage director himself. Bartosz Frątczak lives in Vilnius and is a teacher, philosopher and journalist as well as photographer. From 2014 to 2018 Frątczak photographed Holocaust survivors and family members, and rescuers. From 2017 to 2019 he documented living Polish World War II veterans.
#Atmintis #Memory #AEPJ
On November 12 our tireless scout leader Adomas and his sister Adelina, also a scout, turned 20. Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and the entire Lithuanian Jewish Community wish them a wonderful birthday, that all their dreams would come true, endless new adventures and the love of all around them. Mazl tov!
You’re invited to come to another challa-making workshop. This time we’ll make buns in the form of the star of David, and the workshop is dedicated to paying honor to the courageous soldiers defending our historical homeland, Israel, and to all the people of Israel caught up in the storm of war.
Time: 6:30 P.M., Friday, November 17
Place: Bagel Shop Café, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius
Registration is required by writing zanas@sc.lzb.lt or calling +370 678 81514.
Am Yisrael khai.
They’re not yet teenagers but they have their own firm opinion on almost everything, and freely interject them when others speak, although they often go unheard, even by their older brothers and sisters. They tend to loose their heads for reasons wholly misunderstood by many. No less important than air and mobile telephones, they need to spend time with people their own age. So the Ilan Club is there for that, and offers young people from the age of 7 to 12 the opportunity to spend time together and do fun and meaningful activities. Ilan meets every Sunday at noon on the second floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius.
The Abi Men Zet Zich Seniors Club meets regularly on Wednesdays and last Wednesday fell on the one-month anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel. Many club members have family in Israel and some serve in the military. Our seniors, many of them Holocaust survivors, lit candles and said kaddish for the Israeli soldiers who have died and for the hostages.
Am Yisrael khai.
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club invites you to take part in our tennis tournament from 10:00 A.M. till 1:00 P.M. on Sunday, November 16, at the SEB Arena, Ąžuolyno street no. 7, Vilnius. The format will depend on the number and level of participants. Registration is required by November 16 by writing manovilnius99@gmail.com or calling 8612 81088. See you there!
Photo: German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier and chancellor Olaf Sholz attended a ceremony to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogroms at the synagogue of the Kahal Adass Jisroel Jewish complex attacked by Molotov cocktails last month.
BERLIN (AP)–Across Germany, in schools, city halls, synagogues, churches and parliament, people came together Thursday to commemorate the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass in 1938 in which the Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Germany’s main Jewish leader Josef Schuster spoke at an anniversary ceremony at a Berlin synagogue that was attacked with firebombs last month.
“Jews have been particularly affected by exclusion for centuries,” Scholz said in his speech.
“Still and again here in our democratic Germany, and that after the breach of civilization committed by Germans in the Shoah,” they are being discriminated against, the chancellor added.
“That is a disgrace. It outrages and shames me deeply,” Scholz said. “Any form of anti-Semitism poisons our society. We do not tolerate it.”
Photo: Members of the Australian Jewish community participate in a rally in Sydney in late October. Photograph: David Gray/AFP/Getty Images
by Daisy Dumas, November 9, 2023
The broader Jewish community in Australia this week marked 30 days since the October 7 Hamas attacks with vigils and candle-lighting ceremonies
More than 100 Australian Holocaust survivors have united to denounce a wave of “senseless and virulent” anti-Semitism that they fear is growing in the country.
The “last witnesses to the unspeakable horrors of the Nazi regime,” many in their 90s, have penned a letter against abusive incidents that have targeted the Jewish community as Israeli retaliations continue after the brutal Hamas attacks and kidnappings of October 7.
“We are witnesses to the anti-Semitic propaganda that turned our friends, neighbors and the general public against us in Europe. We remember the six million Jewish lives lost because of this hatred,” the 102 Australian survivors wrote in the letter published in the Australian on Thursday.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community in concert with the Cvi Park enterprise again invite you to the Darna Festival of live music, poetry and photographic exhibits to celebrate UNESCO’s International Day of Tolerance.
The program includes an exhibit of photographs by Antanas Sutkus, Bartosz Frątczak and Andrey Kezzyn, snacks and drinks with live music at the Cvi Parkas kiosk in Petras Cvirka Square across the street from the LJC, a performance by students from the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium, a performance by Australian vocalist and musician Skye Magnus, Algis Davidavičius speaking on the topic of tolerance, poetry by Indrė Valantinaitė, piano music by Darius Mažintas and Duettissimo with Glebas Pyšniakas playing cello and Dalia Dedinskaitė on violin.
Cvi Parkas will serve vegetable dishes and desserts, natural wine and craft beer for customers. The event itself is free and open to the public. It starts around 6:00 P.M. on Thursday, November 16, on the third floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius.