Sophomore students from the Žeimena high school in Pabradė and their history teacher Mr. Stundza visited a Holocaust memorial to the Jews of Pabradė on September 23, the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide. Švenčionys Jewish Community chairman Moishe Shapiro was invited to tge commemoration and spoke to the students.
The following protest is being called by people who describe themselves as the cultural community of Lithuanian for tomorrow, September 25, to protest the minister of culture proposed and delgated by the Nemuno Aušra party. Details and petition link below.
Dear people of culture,
We are protesting. We categorically oppose the Government’s shocking decision to hand the post of minister of culture over to the Nemuno Aušra party.
We believe that:
Culture cannot be used a tool for political deal-making. The Lithuanian Culture Ministry is not a token which can be exchanged for short-term political gain;
Culture is our memory, the foundation of democratic values, society’s guarantor of resilience to propaganda;
To give this ministry over to a political force characterized by populism, anti-Semitic and pro-Russian rhetoric is dangerous, both to the cultural sector and to society as a whole.
We urge:
The Lost Shtetl Museum, after several years of construction and preparation and missed opening dates, finally opened its doors to the public in Šeduva, Kithuania on September 20.
According to visitors and experts, the museum is unlike any other in Lithuania. A large collection of authentic objects tells the story of the Jewish shtetl Šeduva, but also of all shtetls in Lithuania and the region. Some of the texts and exhibits are funny, and portray situations, trials and tribulations from daily life, love letters, immigration plans and excitement for upcoming holidays.
The museums thematic sections and exhibit items are complemented by tactile and olfactory details which might be ignored at first but provide an overall impression, according to one visitor.
This week a stone marker was unveiled in Baisogala, Lithuania, to commemorate synagogues which once stood there.
Jewish settlement began there in the early 19th century and by the 20th century more than half the town was Jewish. The shtetl had a number of synagogues, a Jewish primary school and Jewish workshops. All signs of Jewish life were destroyed by the Nazis and Soviets.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky unveiled the stone marker and Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yaatom performed kaddish.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to come honor the approximately 200,000 :Lithuanian Holocaust victims at Ponar on the outskirts of Vilnius this Thursday, September 25. Transportation to and from Ponar is available, register by sending an email to info@lzb.lt.The bus will leace from the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius at 12:45 {.M. sharp, and will not wait for latecomers.
Time: ~1:00 P.M., Thursday, September 25
Place: Ponar Memorial Complex, Agrastų street no. 15A, Vilnius
Dear friends,
Greetings on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, 5786!
May the mighty sound of the shofar drive away all of the bad from the previous year and bring happiness, success and peace. As you sit around the Rosh Hashanah holiday table with family and break the challa bread, I hope and wish you take pride in your identity and traditions, and that you would inculcate the next generation with this feeling.
May smiles and joy follow you at every step.
A calm, peaceful and sweet New Year. Shana tova umetuku!
Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community
Aldona Raf has died. She was born in 1936. She was a member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and a client of the Saul Kagan Welfare Center. Oir deepest condolences to her friends and family.
Rosh Hashanah begins at 6:59 P.M. on Monday and ends at 8:05 P.M. Wednesday. The new Jewish year is 5786. The Lithuanian Jewish Community will celebrate Rosh Hashanah at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius.
Schedule:
Monday
6:30 P.M. Mincha and maariv prayers
Tuesday
10:00 A.M. Shacharit prayer
12:00 noon Blowing of the shofar
12:15 P.M. Musaf with Shmuel Yaatom
2:30 P.M. Mincha
6:00 P.M. Blowing of the shofar
8:10 O,N, Maariv
Israel’s new amvassador to Lithuania Shelly Hugler-Livne and deputy ambassador Shimon Pesach visited the Kaunas Jewish Community last week and met with chairman Gercas Žakas. They also visited Sugihara House, the Ninth Fort Museum, the Beit Israel community center abd took in the wall painting of Leya Goldberg. The new amvassador and deputy visited the Lithuanian Health Sciences University as well.
They met the mayor of Kaunas and visited the Čiurlionis National Art Museum in Kaunas.
The Šiauliau Regional Jewish Community warmly congratulates Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky on her birthday. May every day be filled with meaning, may every person you meet bring a smile, and every experience become one more step towards true happiness. On your birthday we wish you inner peace, self-confidence and endless courage o forge your own path. Take joy in each day of life and don’t be afraid to dream, because only those who believe in their dreams are able to make them come true.
Sincerest greetings on your birthday, on the Day of Life! We wish you strength, good health, faith and faith in yourself, your strength and guarantor of the strength of all of us. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Sincerely,
Šiauliai Jewish Community
Dear Faina,
We sincerely congratulate you on the ocassion of your birthday!
Your endless energy, focused work and the responsibility you take upon yourself for the entire Community are an inspirational example for all of us. Even those daily taks you do behind the scenes result in tangible changes which touch many.
In the name of the Ukmergė Jewish Community I wish you strong health, inner tranquility, meaningful ideas and a loyal team bsside you. May each day bring not merely new ideas, but also joyful moments among friends, family and the like-minded.
With grea respect and the warmest wishes,
Ukmergė Jewish Community
Dearest chairwoman,
We sincerely congratulate you on your birthday! May this special day be filled with the warmth of those around you and the love of family and friends. We wish you good health, happiness and success in all your endeavors. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
The Lithuanian Jewish Community
The city of Vilnius, the Jewish Culture and Information Center and the Vilnius Museum have set up 7 stands marking the path along which Jews were marched to their murder at Ponar. The project is meant to commemorate Lithuania’s Day of Remembrance of Jewish Victims of Genocide on September 23. The stands contain photographs by Holocaust survivor Akiva Gershater with texts by historian Zigmas Vitkus.
Jews were taken to be shot at Ponar, either marched or driven in trucks, along what is now Savanorių prospect. up the hill to Ponar and then along what was then the Grodno highway.
The organizers invite the public to march this route, starting at the Hyacinth Chapel at the intersection of Konarskio street and Jovaro sreet, where boundary markers marking the city limits once stood, and where now the first stand is located.
The march will conclude at the Ponar Memorial Complex where historian and Holocaust researcher Milda Jakulytė-Vasil will conclude with a speech about the mass murder site.
THe march begins at the aforementioned intersection at 10:00 A.M. on Sunday, September čą. The route is about 10 or 7 miles long and should take from 2.5 to 3 hours to complete. A portion of the trek is through forest. Milda Jakulytė-Vasil will speak at Ponar for 30 to 45 minutes. The return trip can be made by train at the Ponar train station or by city bus.
Marchers should wear comfortable walking shoes and are asked to register here.
Natalja Cheifec continues her internet discussion club with a special lesson the High Holy Days at 6:00 P.M. on September 18. To participate, register here.
Happy 5786!
Niva Pillay as head of a special panel convened by the United Nations Human Rights Ciuncil, presented the panel’s report Tuesday accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza and said Israel had met four out of five criteria qualifying the crime of genocide, including, she said, targeting Gazan children for death, and bizarrely Israel’s destruction of frozen embryos.
She accused prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, president Isaac Herzog and former defense minister Yav Galant specifically as having incited genocide through their statements and actions. Pillay went on to say at the press conference that member-states should intervene in the conflict immediately to stop the alleged genocide. She said member-states “don’t need” to wait for a ruling from the UN’s body responsible for trying the crime of genocide, the International Court of Justice.
In 1999 UK prime minister Tony Blaire and US president Bill Clinton used the ‘higher necessity” argument of preventing genocide of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo to invade Serbia and carpet-bomb Belgrade and Novi Sad for around 60 days and nights. The UN treaty for the prevention of genocide and the Nuremberg courts claim prevention of genocide supersedes national boundaries and sovereignty, and demands outside states intervene.
The European Commission responded to Pillay’s call almost in real time, promising to slap sanctions on Israel on Wednesday in contravention to the Israeli-EU trade agreement.
To mark Lithuania’s Jewish Victims of Genocide Remembrance Day, Audra Girijotė will give a presentation about Dovydas Matishohu Lipmanas at the synagogue in Čekiškė, Lithuania (Tsaykishok in Yiddish). Lipman was perhaps the most famous writer from the small town, and focused on the history of the Jewish community there, in Kaunas, Žemaitija and in Lithuania in general. He also wrote about the Vilna Gaon and was a frequent contributor to Yiddish periodicals. Born in 1888 in the village of Nemakščiai in the Raseiniai district, Lipman lived in and around Čekiškė from 1925 to his murder. He bought and ran a pharmacy there while writing a number of books. He was a qualified pharmacist with a degree from Dorpat (Tartu). He was murdered just outside the village in late July, 1941, by Stanislovas Gudavičius, a commander of local Lithuanian white-armbanders, according to Lithuanian historian Alfredas Rukšėnas.
Audra Girijotė is a writer and journalist who has been researching the life and death of Dovydas Lipmanas over the last several years.
Time: 1:00 P.M., September 23
Place: Čekiškė synagogue, Lašišos street no. 21, Čekiškė, Kaunas district
JewishGen yizkor for Tsaykishok here.
More biographical information in Lithuanian and English here.
The 21st annual European Day of Jewish Culture held on the first Sunday in September had the theme People of the Book this year. The Lithuanian Jewish Community celebrated in Vilnius with learning as well as song, dance and food during a day-long program that went well into the late evening.
The main venues were the Choral Synagogue with basic Yiddish and Hebrew lessons and a tour, and the Cvi Park Israeli street food kiosk and performance space at Petras Cvirka Park across the street from the LJC. Tours, sampling of food, Jewish Vilna toursm concerts by Fayerlakh and klezmer groups, entertainment by writer, thinker and self-professed professonial clown Arkadijus Vinokuras and a concert by the Kiryat Ono youth quartet were just some of the activities that day.
Photographs follow.
September 23 is a national day of mourning, marking the significance of the loss of Lithuanian Jewry in the Holocaust and the loss to Lithuanian society.
The village of Subačius, the shtetl Subotch, had a large Jewish population engaged in wholesale, shopkeeping, running bars and taverns and all sorts of other business endeavors. Almost all the Jews there were exterminated in 1941 in the Ilčiūnai Forest, also known as Lapkalnis, two kilometers from Subačius. From 80 to 300 Jews from Kupiškis andr Subačius were murdered there, according to different sources. A monument marks their mass grave. There were Righteous Gentiles there as well who saved Jews.
The ceremony to mark Jewish Genocide Remembrance Day in Subačius will include a descendamt of one family who rescued Jews, the Markevičiuses. The ceremony includes a presentation of the book “Kupiškėnai – žydų gelbėtojai” [Kupiškis Residents Who Rescued Jews] put together by historian and Kupiškis Museum specialist Aušra Jonušytė. Students from the Kupiškis Art School will provide a musical component.
Time: 11:00 A.M., September 23
Place: Subačius House of Culture, Aukštaičių street no. 14, Subačius
A new documentary on Litvak, Holocuast survivor and life-long Holocaust educator, the late Irena Veisaitė is scheduled for release in late October.
Variously titled “A Goodnight Kiss,” “Irena” and “For Irena” the Lithuanian Catalog of Cinema describes the film this way:
The film chronicles the incredible life of professor Irena Veisaite, a survivor of the murderous Holocaust and Stalinist reign in Lithuania. She is today a cultural icon, uniting people of different ages, religions, nationalities from all over the world. As she approaches her 93th birthday and shows no signs of slowing down, we follow Irena as she addresses our contemporary issues and revisits her painful past. A film that shows that the power of love can overcome trauma, and transform it into the art of living.
Irena Veisaitė passed away December 11, 2020.
Lithuanian state radio and television and the news website 15min.lt report the film will premiere October 24 in Lithuania. The Kino Pavasaris film festival and movie theater association announced the premiere of the documentary in a press release last week.
Description and more information here.