he Palanga Jewish Community invites you to attend an exhibit of works by Lazar Kagan at the Jonas Šliūpas Museum opening this Thursday. Kagan was a Jewish cartoonist and illustrator from Palanga in interwar Lithuania.
Time: 5:30 P/M/. Thursday, Octobver 30
Place: Jonas Šliūpas Museum, Vytauto street no. 23A, Palanga
by Skirmantė Javaitytė
On Friday the Kaunas Jewish Community and Liudas Mažylis unveiled a plaque commemorating the site of the birthing clinic formerly run by the Righteous Gentiles Pranas Mažylis, Liudas’s grandfather, Pranas’s wife Antanina and their daughter Liūda.
The plaque features a child’s bracelet inlaid with the inscription: “In Pranas Mažylis’s ,maternity clinic in this building from 1936 to 2025 thousands of babies entered the world. During World War II the Pranas and Antanina Mažylis family saved Jews here.” The family rescued a number of Jews.
Grandson Liudas Mažylis said at the ceremony he hadn’t been a part of it because he was born in 1954. He said his grandparents saved Liliana Levintoff, Isaac Yudelavitch, Grigory Teper and Bela Gurvitch.
The Jewish song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh performed Sunday in Simnas as the final act in the celebration of the 120th birthday of the synagogue there and of the former Jewish community in the small town.
Members of the audience had the chance to sample traditional Jewish foods and learn more about the shtetl.
Members of the Panevėžys Jewish Community and Panevėžys municipal officials visited the Lost Shtetl Museum in Šeduva October 17.
Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofmanas.presented a new Jewish calendar to museum staff.
The Judaica Research Center at the Lithuanian National Library presents a lecture by Center director Lara Lempertienė at 6:00 P.M. Tuesday, October 28, on Yiddish poet and novelist Moyshe Kulbak called “I Am This City: Moyshe Kulnak’s Vilnius” in :Lithuanian.
Lempertienė for many years has worked with Jewish texts from Lithuania and Europe and has research manuscripts in the National Library’s Judaica collection. She was graduated from Vilnius University as a philologist, studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and was a visiting scholar at Oxford University’s Hebrew and Judaica Studies Center. She earned a doctorate for her thesis “Rabbinical Exegesis in the Context of Traditional Jewish Education in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.”
The lecture will take place at the Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum in Vilnius where an accompanying exhibit of art by Tania Mourad is on display touching on the Holocaust experience and Litvak poetry, with street graffiti transcribed into the Yiddish alphabet. For more information, call +370 5 261 6764 or send an emial to the museum at kasiulio.muziejus@lndm.lt.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Tuesday, October 28
Place: Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum, Goštauto street no. 1, Vilnius
Lithuanian diplomat Dainius Junevičius will present his research on Litvaks in the Cape Town, South Africa, archives he and others conducted in 2024 at the Vilnius Jewish Public Library at 5:30 P.M. Tuesday, October 30.
The research project by the Lithuanian Literature and Art Institute sent the team to the Kaplan Jewish Research Centre at University of Cape Town and the Western Cape Archive where they discovered thousands of documents regarding Litvak immigration to South Africa and Litvak life and achievements in South Africa.
Junevičius was Lithuanian ambassador to the Republic of South Africa from 2021 to 2023. The presentation will be in Lithuanian.
Time: 5:30 P.M. Tuesday, October 30
Place: Vilnius Jewish Public Library, courtyard, Gedimino prospect no. 24, Vilnius
The Vilnius Gewish Public Library will screen the documentary “The Commandant’s Daughter” featuring the recollections of Ada Gens, daughter of Vilnius ghetto Jewish Police chief Jakov Gens (aka Yakov, Jacob, Jokūnas Gens) at 6:00 P.M. Wednesday, October 22. Jakov Gens’s great-grandson Alexander Phibbs is to speak at the event.
Gens as de facto ruler of the Vilnius ghetto made controversial and lasting decisions for the survival of a remnant of Vilna Jewry. His post-Holocaust legacy was as nemesis to the FPO underground partisan organization, although Gens died in Gestapo custody. Gens displayed a clear preference for Hebrew over Yiddish as the language of the Jews in the future state of Israel.
Great-grandson Alexander Phibbs says heard his grandmother’s stories as a child but didn’t attach greater historical significance to them then. Phibbs began doing his own Holocaust research in 2008 and came across his grandmother Ada’s testimony to the US Holocaust Museum, and realized how little he really knew about Jakov Gens and the role he played in the Vilnius ghetto.
The Science and Encyclopedia Publishing Center of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library and the Judaica Research Center there are pleased to announce the publication of a Lithuanian translation of Cecile Esther Kuznitz’s acclaimed monograph “YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture: Scholarship for the Yiddish Nation.”.
The book presentation will take place at 6:00 P.M on October 21 in the Conference Hall (5th floor) of the National Library. The event will feature the author Cecile Esther Kuznitz, professor of history and director of Jewish Studies at Bard College; Laimonas Briedis, cultural geographer and Vilnius researcher; and Jolanta Mickutė, scholar of Eastern European Jewish history. The discussion will be moderated by Lara Lempertienė, director of the Judaica Research Center.
Originally published in English in 2014, “YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture” is the first comprehensive history of the YIVO founded in Vilnius in 1925. As the only in-depth study of the institute’s activities in Vilnius before World War II, the publication of a Lithuanian translation is a long-awaited and significant cultural event.
Liudas Mažylis and the Kaunas Jewish Community will unveil a plaque commemorating Righteous Gentiles Antanina and Pranas Mažylis on the façade of the Pranas Mažylis Birth Center in Kaunas next week. The couple hid Jews during the Holocaust at the birth center including Lilijana Levintoffskytė, Isakas Judelevičius, Grigorijus Teperis and Bela Gurvičiūtė.
“Back then in our family even thought about whether to hekp these poor people. WE just had to, that’s all,” the couple’s daughter Liūda Mažylytė-Rasteikienė recalled later.
Time: 2:00 P.M., Friday, October 24
Place: Putvinskio street no. 3, Kaunas
The Kaunas Jewish invites you to a celebration of the 135th anniversary of the birth of the crooner Daniel Dolskis and the 100th anniversary of the composer Benjaminas Gorbulskos with a concert by the Lithuanian Symphonic Horn Orchestra and others. Besides old favorites and lesser known works by both men, there will also be a presentation of the biographies of both men. The concert is free.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Monday, October 27
Place: Kaunas State Philharmonic, Ožeškienės street no. 12, Kaunas
In spite of poor weather, members of the Panevėžys Jewish Community celebrated Sukkot in the traditional way with a booth set up in the Community’s courtyard.
The holiday brought together members new and old who discussed current events and shared family stories.
Today is Simchat Torah.
The Palanga Jewish Community and Lithuania’s Onternational Commission for Assessing the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Ocuppational Regimes will screen a documentary film called “Following the Jäger Repor” at 2:00 P.M. on Tuesday, October 28 at the Kurhaus Theater, Grafų Tiškevičių alley no. 1, Palanga. The documentary will be followed by a discussion with historian Stanislovas Stasiulis. TYhe film was directed by Boris Maftsir, and Rony Katzenelson ftom Israel.
The Jäger Report is a report Wehrmacht officer Karl Jäger made for his superiors in Berlin detailing the number, location and gender of Jewish mass murder victims in the early months of the Holocaust in Lithuania, the fall of 1941 when almost all Lithuanian Jews were murdered by Lithuanians and Germans. In some cases affitional information was provided, e.g., the entry for July 4, 1941, for Kaunas noted the murder of two American citizens.
The internet discussion club continues with a look at the biographical drama Golda about late Israeli prime minister Golda Meir and what she did during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. To insure a more fruitful discussion, try to watch the film before the meeting. To get zoom credentials. click here.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Thursday, October 16
Place: internet
Last Thursday members of the Šiauliai District Jewish Community celebrated Sykkot with a sukka in the courtyard where members dwelt, handled the four species, prayed, shared blessings and ate. The sukka is open for the entirety of Sukkot which ends on Tuesday (or Wednesday, depending on your tradition and inclination). Members and friends are invited to come and dwell.
The international duet of Nijolė Dorotėja Beniušytė on harpsichord and violinist from Israel Daniel Fradkin will perform with a chance for the audience to hear a rare instrument, the mysterious viola d‘amore. The program includes works by Handel, J.S. Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Jiří Antonín Benda/
For tickets and more information in Lithuanian, click here.
Time:6:00 P.M., October 23
Place: Samuel Bak Museum, Naugarduko street no. 10, Vilnius
Contestants will perform in the fifth International Nechama Lifshitz Song Contest at the Lithuanian Jewish Community at 6:00 P.M. on October 28. There will be snacks, coffee and an opportunity to meet the contestants following the concert.
A plaque commemorating Righteous Gentiles Sofija Kymantaitė-Čiurlionienė, her daughter Danutė Čiurlionytė-Zubovienė and her daughter’s husband Vladimir Zubov was unveiled at Žemaičių street no. 10 in Kaunas last month. The Lithuanian state radio and television Jewish affairs program Menora documented the event.
Television program in Lithuanian here.
Eighty-four years ago Jews from Palanga were murdered en masse in the Kunigiškiai Forest. Palanga Jewish Community chairman Vilius Gutmanas visited the mass murder site with Palanga city Culture Department staff Robertas Trautmanas and Janina Balužė Octpber 10.
One of the first casualties of the Nazi invasion of Palanga on June 22, 1941, was a summer camp there of Jewish children from all over Lithuania. Many of the children escaped, some were killed and others taken prisoner. On June 26 women, chilren and the elderly were imprisoned in one of the synagogues in Palanga. The latter were taken to a makeshift ghetto in Valteriškė village a few days later. The Jews there were murdered October 11 and 12, 1941. It is believed around 200 Jews from Palanga were murdered there and then.
Dear members,
We invite members of the Dubi and Ilan Clubs and their parents to come celebrate Sukkot together in the courtyard of the Lithuanian Jewish Community with kiddush blessings inside the booth, aka sukka, erected there. Cantor Daniel Zakhry from Sao Paulo will ;ead the ceremony.
Time: 1:00 P.M., Saturday, October 11
Place: LJC, Vilnius