Learning

A Tale of Two Synagogues in Vilnius: Both Survived the Meat Grinder of History

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… If you call the Choral Synagogue the fortunate daughter, then another surviving synagogue near the bus station and train station could be called the poor stepdaughter in terms of appearance and visitors. The building located at Gelių street no. 6 only bears slight resemblance to a house of prayer. Restoration of the abandoned building began recently, in 2015.

Using several sources of financing, this synagogue has been slowly getting back on its feet over the last two years to become what it once was, a house of prayer. It’s said that it was the first stop for Jews arriving in Vilnius by train from all points in Lithuania. That’s hardly surprising, since the synagogue is right next to the railroad tracks!

This synagogue was in a state of imminent collapse until 2014 and its rebirth began with a “STOP” ribbon put up around it, followed by work to strengthen the roof. Over the three years since repairs began, great progress has been made. But it probably won’t be completed in 2017, it will take years longer.

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Meeting at the Kaunas Young Tourists Center

The Kaunas Young Tourists Center hosted the meeting “Don’t Forget” on the afternoon of February 9. Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas and Feiga Koganskienė took part in the meeting where young regional historians, tourism critics, tourists and older sea scout members and leaders listened to the story of the Kaunas ghetto. The Kaunas Jewish Community and the sea scouts have a history of association ever since the sea scouts took the initiative and began attending Community events.

This event was organized by Tolerance Education Program coordinator Dailna Galskienė and extracurricular history group leader Martyna Vitkauskaitė Valantikonienė.

Launch of Irena Veisaitė Biography in Kaunas

The President Valdas Adamkus Library/Museum and the publishing house Aukso žuvys launched historian Aurimas Švedas’s biography “Irena Veisaitė. Gyvenimas turėtų būti skaidrus” in Kaunas February 9. The author and the subject of his book attended. The discussion was moderated by professor Egidijus Aleksandravičius. A large number of readers including members of the Kaunas Jewish Community turned out for the meeting with one of the more remarkable modern Lithuanian cultural figures, professor Irena Veisaitė. Among the many subjects she addressed was her native city of Kaunas, which she said was “under her skin.”

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Jewish Brothers of Lithuanian Soccer

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After a match between Kaunas LFLS and Kaunas Makabi in 1926

The Jewish community influenced the development of the sport of soccer in interwar Lithuania. In 1916 the Jews of Vilna followed in the footsteps of their fellow Jews in Warsaw and founded the Jewish athletics and sports club Makabi. Vilna Makabi not only propagated gymnastic and other fields of athletics, but also soccer. The interwar provisional capital of Lithuania, Kaunas, was mad about soccer then and became the center of sporting activity. The Lithuanian Athletics Union was founded there in 1919, and a year later was replaced by the Lithuanian Physical Fitness Sports Union (the Lithuanian acronym is LFLS). The Jewish Makabi Union soon followed and was established in Kaunas.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Concert in Memory of Saulius Sondeckis at Royal Castle in Vilnius

by Monika Petrulienė, Lithuanian National Radio and Television TV News Service

A concert to honor the memory of the late professor and conductor Saulius Sondecikis called “Called to Music” was held at the Royal Castle in Vilnius. Stars and young talents from around the world came to pay their respects to the man with whom they had worked and performed.

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Conductor and teacher Saulius Sondeckis

On February 7 some of the performers included violinist Zakhar Bron, trumpeter Sergei Nakariakov, pianists Maria Meyerovich and Julia Zilberquit and the maestro’s son, Paulius Sondeckis.

Solo violinist and violin teacher Zakhar Bron recalled: “We weren’t closely acquainted when he gave the good word for me and helped me very much. Later I encountered this man more often and then I realized what a deep and gigantic figure he really was. Lithuania has become a country dear to me because of Saulius Sondeckis.”

Violinist Boris Traub said: “It so happened that I completed music school with him, and the conservatory, and I worked with him. I was associated with him from 1957 until last year, quite a long gig. There aren’t many families of this kind who work so long.”

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State-of-the-Art Jewish Museum Planned in Šeduva

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Preliminary design concept for the Lost Shtetl Museum

Plans have been announced for a state-of-the-art Jewish museum scheduled to open in 2019 as part of the Lost Shtetl memorial complex in Šeduva, Lithuania.

The museum complex is to be designed by the Finnish company Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects who also designed the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. POLIN won the 2016 European Museum of the Year Award. They are towork together with local partner Studia2A established in 1994 and headed by Vilnius Art Academy dean of architecture Jonas Audejaitis.

The museum is to be located next to the sprawling Šeduva Jewish cemetery, completely restored and opened in 2015 as part of the memorial complex. The complex includes memorials at three sites of Holocaust mass murders and mass grave sites and a symbolic sculpture in the middle of the town. A study of the Jews of Šeduva was conducted as part of the project and is to result in a documentary film called Petrified Time by film director Saulius Beržinis.

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Memorial statue in Šeduva. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Sergey Kanovich, founder of the Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund, said the Lost Shtetl Museum will employ advanced technologies to teach visitors the history and culture of Šeduva and similar Litvak shtetls. It is expected to serve as an educational and cultural center.

“Visiting the Lost Shtetl will be a history lesson which will allow national and international visitors to learn about the lost Litvak shtetl history and culture,” he said.

“Lifestyle, customs, religion, social, professional, and family life of Šeduva Jews will serve a center point of the Museum exhibition,” he said. Visitors to museum will learn “the tragedy of Šeduva Jewish history which in the early days of World War II ended in three pits near the shtetl.”

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Generations and Destinies

An exhibition of painting called Generations and Destinies opens at the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum at 5:30 P.M. on February 13, 2017. The exhibit will run until May 21.

The exhibit is dedicated to the 100th birthday of Algirdas Savickis (1917-1943) and includes works by several generations of artists, including interwar Lithuanian diplomat and writer Jurgis Savickis, his sons Algirdas and Augustinas, his grandson Raimondas Savickas and his great-granddaughter Ramunė Savikaitė-Meškėlienė.

The opening is free to the public and the Tolerance Center is located at Naugarduko street no. 10/2 in Vilnius.

Happy Birthday to Aleksandras Rutenbergas

Sveikiname Aleksandrą Rutenbergą su jubiliejumi!

The Lithuanian Jewish Community sends heart-felt birthday greetings to its loyal member Aleksandras Rutenbergas on the occasion of his 70th birthday, wishing him much energy and excellent health!

Aleksandras is an interesting and highly-educated person, a great economist who contributed to the restructuring of the Lithuanian economy in the early period of independence. For 10 years now he has served as the director of the Jewish Cultural Support Center Foundation. The foundation, which restored and refurbished what is now the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum, is supported by Austria. Aleksandras comes from a well-known Litvak family and his parents survived the Holocaust in the ghettos and concentration camps. He is deeply engaged with Jewish heritage and is an active member of the executive board of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, and participates in the activities of the Makabi athletics club.

Aleksandras, we wish you a continued interesting life and that you would achieve all that your heart desires!

Happy birthday!

About Sheryl Sandberg’s Parents, the Sandberg Family

A few days ago we learned the great-grandmother of the world-famous woman Sheryl Sandberg lived in Vilnius. After looking into Sheryl’s family history, it turned out her parents were active participants in the battle for the right of Jews to emigrate from the Soviet Union.

Sheryl Sandberg was born in Washington, D. C., in 1969 and was the eldest of three children. Her parents were English teacher Adele Einhorn and famous ophthalmologist Joel Sandberg. In 1970 there were active in fighting for the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel. In 1975 the married couple were arrested in Kishniev, the capital of Soviet Moldova where they had to come to meet with those who wanted to leave the Soviet Union, and both were expelled from the country.

Not many people remember the anti-Zionist booklets the Soviet Union published in the millions of copies, condemning “foreign emissaries” sent by the West into the USSR, who actually sought to make contact with Jews in their struggle for their human rights, to provide moral support and aid to them. The Israeli press has written of Joel Sandberg who helped Soviet Jews from 1970 to 1980. The well-known ophthalmologist Joel Sandberg of Miami is one of a number of activists in the American Jewish community who fought the battle for the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate.

Sandberg Joel

An attempt to protest by a group of 16 refuseniks (otkazniki) in Leningrad by hijacking a plane in 1970 was a major event at the time. The ringleaders were sentenced to death, but following protests from the international community, the Soviets reduced it to long terms of imprisonment. This encouraged American Jews to support more strongly Jews living in the Soviet Union. In an interview Joel Sandberg, recalling those times, said the main goal of the Americans was to help those protesting against the emigration ban and those wishing to exit the USSR. Out of the thousands refuseniks in Kiev in 1979, only 70 people were granted exit visas a year later, while requests by 3,000 more were rejected.

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Lithuanian Women’s Magazine Features Amit Belaitė on Cover

16486907_10154232463426867_5335691874283383955_oA popular magazine for young Lithuanian women has featured Amit Belaitė, the head of the Lithuanian Union of Jewish Students, on its February cover, with a long interview with her and a series of fashion photographs inside.

“Cover girl: Amita honors her people’s past with deeds,” the cover proclaims.

The feature on page 10 is called “Living History”:

“The Jewish girl Amita Belaitė (24) is completing her studies this year at Vilnius University. During her university career this active defender of human rights was able to establish the Lithuanian Union of Jewish Students, to become the vice president and a member of the executive board of the European Union of Jewish Students, to start a Jewish history project called Mayses fun der Lites/Stories from Lithuania, to become a Living Library volunteer and for all of those activities to receive a tolerance award. Amita, who selected social health studies as her major, said her professional career over those years would have been much more difficult if not for her love of her cherished boyfriend, the economist Rokas Grajauskas (31).”

More information in Lithuanian here.

Israeli Dance Seminar with Ilai Szpiezak

Ilai Szpiezak of London will give a seminar about dance for the first time in Lithuania. Registration is required.

The event is for both accomplished dancers and beginners who have just started or danced in childhood and now want to renew their skills.

To register, send an email to karina.semionova@gmail.com and please indicate the participant’s name, email and telephone number.

Registration is open till February 20.

Ilai Szpiezak, half-Israeli half-Argentinian, started his career as a dancer and choreographer of Israeli dance in 2006, rapidly moving into choreography and the direction of performing troupes and artistic organizations in Argentina at the age of 16. He danced in the international Israeli Dance Company Agshama performing in different countries around South America while training as a professional ballet dancer and was graduated from the Ulpan of Rikudei Am with honors in 2017. He moved to London in 2011 to take on the role of dance development manager in the Israeli dance community. Since then he has been responsible for directing, organizing and managing annual classes, workshops and concerts in London and around the UK including Machol Europa and many other events in Europe. He is looking forward to seeing you all soon!

Lithuanian State Auditors Find Compensation for Jewish Property Used Appropriately

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Vilnius, February 9, BNS–The Lithuanian State Auditor has no complaints on the use of compensation for Jewish religious communal property this year, although they found irregularities last year.

The State Auditor’s Office reported finding no violations in the 2016 audit of the use of such funds.

The year prior to that auditors said the foundation dispensing the funds had used some monies from the state allocated under the Lithuanian law on goodwill compensation for pre-Holocaust Jewish real estate had been used in the 2012-2015 period for matters not defined in the law, namely, to pay for administrative expnses of the disbursing foundation. In 2016 the Lithuanian parliament amended the law to allow for the Goodwill Foundation to pay its own administrative costs.

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Some Features of the Jewish Calendar

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Aušra Požėraitė

by Dr. Aušra Pažeraitė

The Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael in the Midrash details a discussion by Talmudic sages regarding a line from the Bo portion of the readings for the last Sabbath (Exodus 12:2): “This month shall be for you…” Rabbi Ishmael says: Moses showed the new moon to Israel and said to them: In this way shall you see and fix the new moon for the generations. Rabbi Akiva says: This is one of the three things that were difficult for Moses to understand and all of which God pointed out to him with His finger. And thus you say: “And these are they which are unclean for you” (Leviticus 11:29). And thus: “And this is the work of the candelabrum” (Numbers 8:4). Some say it was also difficult for Moses to understand ritual slaughter, it being written: “Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar; two lambs of the first year day by day continually.” (Exodus 29:38).

Modern scholar of Jewish philosophy David Boyarin says this midrash is one of many examples which plainly, almost spelling it out, show how St. Augustine was correct in saying Jews read Holy Scripture “erotically” [erotically charged by ocular desire]. But here “eros” doesn’t mean imprisonment to the material or carnal for its own sake. It is, rather, a certain method or way to understand the life of the spirit, the religious life, based on what is here and now, on the concrete physical world. Rav Moshe Rosenstein of Kelm (Kelmė) in his explanation of the way in which the wisdom of the world differ from the wisdom of the Talmudic sages gave as an example a small bird which once flew through a window into a home and couldn’t not find the path to fly back out because by nature it sought the way on high, whereas in this case it only needed to look downward. In this way the worldly-wise can exalt their wisdom so much that that which is “low,” the simple truths which aid in finding the answers, may be hidden (Basics of Knowledge, I, 24).

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Fifth International Jascha Heifetz Violin Competition in Vilnius

The fifth annual Jasche Heifetz violin contest will take place in Vilnius February 13-19, 2017. The Jascha Heifetz contest is one of the most significant musical competitions held in Vilnius celebrating the enduring legacy of the great Litvak violin virtuoso.

Although the 20th century produced so many excellent violinists, Heifetz stands out as the star of the highest magnitude within that constellation.

He was born in Vilnius in 1901 to a Jewish family. Vilnius was home to many nationalities, and Heifetz preserved the memory of his multicultural hometown and the life and musical traditions of his home. He began the climb to greatness in 1907 in Kaunas as a six-year-old prodigy. In 1912 he received European recognition for his talent in Berlin, and in America, beginning in 1917, he achieved world acclaim. Heifetz’s mastery has become the template for all modern violinists. The scholar Yuri Grigoryev believes the essential feature which set Heifetz apart from all others was actually the inspiration he took from the architecture of Old Vilnius, manifesting in architectonic grandiosity, classical sensibility and variety of expression.

Once George Bernard Shaw, won over by Heifetz’s performance, warned the artist in a letter the next day: “If you provoke a jealous God by playing with such superhuman perfection, you will die young. I earnestly advise you to play something badly every night before going to bed, instead of saying your prayers. No mortal should presume to play so faultlessly.” But God was kind to the artist. His art became part of the eternal repertoire of Grand Music and Vilna has the honor to be remembered as his birthplace.

Profesorius Jurgis Dvarionas

Full story in Lithuanian here.

European Youth Music Contest Winners Mark Jascha Heifetz’s 116th Birthday

On the 116th birthday of violinist Jascha Heifetz on February 2 the winners of the European Youth Music Contest kicked off the Hommage à Heifetz project financed by the European Union program Creative Europe with a concert at the Royal Castle in Vilnius. Talented young musicians from Sweden, Japan, China and Lithuania held the first concert playing selections from Jascha Heifetz repertoire with the St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra of Vilnius conducted by Modestas Barkauskas.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky gave a speech welcoming the audience and thank the organizers, partners, supporters and participants of the contest in the name of the community. On February 19 the winners will be presented a special prize from the Lithuanian Jewish Community.

Faina is Heifetz

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Lecture Series

Basia Nikiforova gives the lecture “Zygmunt Bauman: Life and Legacy” at 12 noon, Sunday, February 12 in the conference hall of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius.

Jared Kushner, Trump Aide and Son-in-Law, Has Litvak Roots

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Jared Kushner is the son-in-law and chief adviser to US president Donald Trump. His roots are in traditional Litvak lands, the areas where Jews lived in the mediaeval Grand Duchy of Lithuania. His grandmother Reichel Rae Berkowitz-Kushner hailed from Novogrudok, known in Lithuanian as Naugardukas, south of Grodno (Gardinas) in Belarus. She was imprisoned in the famous ghetto there where prisoners dug an escape tunnel and fled to the Jewish partisans in the forests.

Born on February 27, 1923, Rae Kushner was the second-oldest of four children in Novogrudok, then part of Poland and spelled Nowogródek.

The city had a thriving Jewish population, comprising just over half of the town’s 12,000 inhabitants. In the summer of 1941, the Nazis invaded Poland at the start of Operation Barbarossa. Though rumors of mass killings had reached Novogrudok by that point, few Jews actually believed that the Germans would carry out such atrocities. Following several massacres, the remaining Jewish population was forced into a ghetto. Rae lived in the city’s courthouse with her family and nearly approximately 600 other Jews. Rae’s mother and older sister were killed in a subsequent massacre on May 7, 1943. Before long, Rae, her father and younger sister were among only 300 Jews left. These remaining Jews managed to dig and escape through a 600-foot tunnel during the nights, using special-made tools in the workshops and hiding the dirt in the walls of buildings. When completed, the 600-foot tunnel was only large enough for one person to crawl through. Upon emerging from it, the escapees were met with gunfire, darkness and disorientation. Consequently, only 170 survived out of the 250 that escaped. Rae’s brother was among the fallen, having lost his glasses during the crawl through the tunnel. Rae and her surviving family spent ten days hiding in the woods, eventually making their way to the home of an acquaintance. The woman fed them and allowed them to sleep in her stable with the cows for one week–a risk that carried the penalty of a violent death. Shortly thereafter, the Bielski partisans took in the escapees from Novogrudok–including Rae and her family.

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Architect Leonidas Merkinas Has Died

Leonidas Merkinas passed away February 7. The Vilnius Jewish Community mourns the loss of their long-time member born February 27, 1948. We mourn his loss with his surviving family members, his wife Tatjana and his sons and daughter. Our deepest condolences.

A wake will be held for him tomorrow, February 8, from 11:00 A.M. to 2:15 P.M. at the funeral home on Olandų street in Vilnius. He will be buried at the Jewish cemetery.

Righteous Gentile Gražbylė Venclauskaitė Has Died

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On February 1 at the age of 105 attorney and honorary citizen of the city of Šiauliai Gražbylė Venclauskaitė passed away. She was born in 1912 to a notable and special family, each member of which individually and as a family became part of history and inseparable components of the life and growth of Šiauliai and Lithuania. In deepest sorrow the Lithuanian Jewish Community mourns her loss. The Community had been preparing a greeting to her on her birthday, noting all the accomplishments of her and her family rescuing both Jews and Lithuanians. The State of Israel recognized Venclauskaitė’s bravery in saving Holocaust victims, bestowing the title of Righteous Gentile.

Venclauskaitė had become a symbol of the city of Šiauliai, embodying optimism and quick wit, and was a living legend. She will likely be buried next to her father Kazimieras Venclauskis, the first mayor of Šiauliai in independent Lithuania before World War II.

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