The Grigoriy Kanovitch Public Library in Jonava in central Lithuania will hold their 9th annual awards ceremony to present the Grigoriy Kanovitch literary prize to the most worthy recipient on September 10.
Attendees will have the chance to meet and talk with the winner afterwards, followed by a street theater performance called Quintetto della Morte.
The Grigoriy Kanovitch Public Library is located at Žeimių street no. 9, Jonava, Lithuania.
The town of Žemaičių Naumiestis is inviting the public to attend an event reopening the former synagogue there as a cultural and performance space, reintegrating it into the municipal landscape.
In the past the synagogue was used as a storage space and as a Soviet Palace of Culture, and for a time as a sports gymnasium. It has been empty and abandoned for years now.
The organizers of the upcoming festival called “Bridges of Michael” hope to extend a bridge between the past and present through art.
Ot begins at 5:00 P.M. on September 23 with an exhibit of works by Ilja Bereznickas including screenings of his animated films. At 6:00 P.M. an installation with live music opens featuring pianist Darius Mažintas, with video by Andrius Seliuta von Rath and Dali Rust. Organizers of the event invite visitors to photograph and film as much as they like, and to share their recordings on social media.
The event is free and open to the public but seating is limited, so attendees are asked to register by sending an email to mykolotiltai25@gmail.com or by clicking here.
There will be a party afterwards at the Pas Virgą café and ffor that registration is strictly required by clicking the same link indicated above.
Miglė Anušauskaitė, a noted Lithuanian cartoonist as well as translator and Judaica scholar, will give a presentation in Lithuanian on humor in Jewish poetry at the Lithuanian National Library at 6:00 P.M. on Thursday, August 4. This is the first installment in a series of events and lectures dedicated to an exhibit of works by Tania Mouraud, the French artist. The Mourand exhibition runs till November 9 at the Lithuanian National Art Museum, Gostauto street no. 1, Vilnius, and is titled “In Honor of Revived Pain” [loose translation].
The two-week International Yiddish Courses hosted by the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium brought students together from around the world with Yiddish song, excerpts from classical texts, comedy and the lore of Jewish Vilne.
“I would like to thank all the organizers who helped us hold the annual courses. We are so happy that Jewish students from Lithuania and from abroad are studying Yiddish, that they are interested in it as a language, but also as a tradition, partially religious, including food and songs. All this together constitutes Jewish culture which we strive to preserve,” Lithuanian Hewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky commented.
Visitors from Germany visited the Šiauliai Jewish Community last week. In the company of Šiauliai Jewish Community members they visited the Šeduva Lost Shtetl Jewish Museum whuch they said left a deep impression on them. The visitors said they’d like to visit the museum again.
The guests from Germany attended a Sabbath celebration with the Šiauliai Jewish Community.
Natalja Cheifec’s internet discussion club meets Thursday at 6:00 P.M. To join the conversation, click here.
The Ryto Allegro [Mornin Allegro] program on Lithuanian state radio’s classical music channel asked about plans to rebuild the Great Synagogue in Vilnius last week, following the announcement the Vilnius municipality began removal of a Soviet0era brick school house on top of the remains of the Great Synagogue on August 18.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky told the interviewer, “Rebuilding the synagogue as a house of prayer doesn’t make sense because there are not enough Jews who want to pray to support that.”
Sje moted the final death knell for the Great Synagogue came in the Soviet era. Although it was heavily damaged by bombardment in World War II, the Soviets sought to erase religion from daily life, and billdozed the parts of the synagogue which were still stamding..
“The Community’s main goal is to revivify the neighborgood which for many years was known as the Jewish Quarter. Many interesting artifacts were discovered during archaeological digs which the story of the Jews who lived here, and these should be memorialized and shown to the public,” Kukliansky told the radio audience.
The interviewer asked whether it was realistic to expect the site to become a Jewish community center. Kukliansky said that possibility shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.
“I don’t want to say too much while plans haven’t been finalized, but there is a team with world-renowned architect Massimiliano Fuksas to create a modern center which included creating an attractive space for young people to learn about the Vilna Gaon, Jewish history and the former Great Synagogue,” Kukliansky commented.
by Geoff Vasil
The Australian media, former Australian ambassador to Australia Dave Sharma, Jewish community leader Alex Ryvchin and a series of Australian politicians on both sides of the aisle are saying Israeli-Australian relations are at an all-time low.
This followed a tweet by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling Australian PM Anthony Albanese a weak leader who has failed to protect Australian Jews.
Albanese appeared to brush off the criticism and told the press he tries to deal with international leaders respectfully.
Shortly after a letter Netanyahu had sent Albanese several days earlier leaked in the media. The letter accused Albo of pouring fuel on the fire of anti-Semitism in Australia and called him a coward in so many words for appeasing Hamas with recognition of Palestinian statehood.
A delegation from the Kaunas Jewish Community recently returned from a trip to Germany where they visited Dachau and other sites. Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Žakas Gercas’s uncle and father were imprisoned at Dachau.
The delegation also visited Wrocłaq in Poland, two castles in Germanym the city of Munich, the quaint town of Regensburg.and Nürnberg (Nuremberg). They stopped in Krempną in Poland on the way home.
Natalja Cheifec continues here discussion of the Holy Land and its people in a third installment as part of her internet discussion club Thursday. To receive zoom credentials, click here.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Thursday, August 21
Place: internet
The Vilnius news website madeinvilnius.lt reports work to remove a brick building, a former school, above the subterranean remains of the Great Synagogue in Vilnius is set to begin August 18. The city municipality says the removal is necessary to both provide access to and protect the archaeological site which includes the Great Synagogue and adjacent mikvot.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
by Grant Gochin, August 11, 2025
For three decades, my soul has roared with an unquenchable fire, forged in the crucible of my family’s slaughter in Lithuania. No polished diploma adorns my walls–my education was ripped from the smoldering ruins of personal tragedy and honed in the blood-soaked trenches of diplomacy across Africa’s most perilous corners. This is no academic sermon; it’s a primal scream, carved from scars, seething rage and an ironclad vow to never let genocide’s shadow fall on my people again. The ancient blood libel–that vile lie blaming all Jews for the crimes of none, or sometimes, possibly, a few, a grotesque slander conjured from thin air to vilify our people without a shred of truth–has been resurrected by traitors who wield their Jewish identity like a blade to disembowel our nation. These are the “As a Jew” Jews, a festering betrayal we must rip out root and branch.
Natalja Cheifec continues her internet discussion group on the topic of the Holy Land and its people. THis will be the second part of that discussion. To receive zoom credentials, click here.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Thursday, August 14
Place: internet
“I am a proud Litvak,” Israeli president Isaac Herzog told an audience of LJC members and students from the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius Monday last week.
He and wife Michal watched a performance by younger students from the school and the president fielded questions from students afterwards.
“Jews have been living in Lithuania 600 years now. This is our home, our gomeland, while Israel is our historical homeland which we support and always weill,” Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky told the assembly.
A book of interviews with Lithuanian cellist Davidas Geringas written by musical journalist Jan Brachmann is now abailable in Lithuanian and will be presented Monday, August 11. The book is called “Tik Niekam Nesakyk” [Just Don’t Tell Anyone] and tells the story of Geringas’s persecution by Soviet security structures and his family’s experience as Jews in Soviet Lithuania, along with Geringas’s meetings with remarkable people and his support for Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenytsin. The book was previously translated into German and Italian.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Monday, August 11
Place: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius
Natalja Cheifec continues her internet discussion club, this time discussing the Promised Land and its people. To receive zoom credentials to listen to and contribute to the discussion, click here.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Thursday, August 7
Place: internet
by Grant Gochin, July 31, 2025
As a 16-year-old South African in 1980, I watched Zimbabwe’s “liberation” unfold on television–a moment seared into my memory. The Rhodesian flag fell, the Zimbabwean flag rose, and the haunting strains of “Auld Lang Syne” marked the end of colonial rule. Those notes still pull me back to that fleeting hope for a better future. But let’s be brutally honest–hope was a cruel illusion.
The world cheered as Rhodesia’s white regime fell under global pressure. The cause was righteous: equality was non-negotiable. But the world ignored the *day after.* Independence’s euphoria drowned out any thought of governance or stability. Rhodesia’s economy, though prosperous for a few, had thrived on systemic inequality. Yet post-independence Zimbabwe became a husk of poverty, starvation and tyranny. Equal rights? No: equal suffering for all.
Zimbabwe’s collapse is a glaring warning for any conflict where ideals outpace pragmatism, especially in the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire. Critics, including feeble Western governments, hound Israeli prime minister Netanyahu for not presenting a tidy post-war plan for Gaza while rockets rain down. Meanwhile, activists chant “from the river to the sea,” a call for Israel’s annihilation which ignores the consequences. Sound familiar? It’s Zimbabwe 2.0–glory in the cause, deliberate obfuscation for the ignorant masses.
The Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library continues celebrations the 10tth anniversary of teh founding of the YIVO Jewish research institute in Vilnius with a lecture by Silvia Hansman titled “Reflections of Vilnius in Buenos Aires: The YIVO Institute in Argentina” next week,
Silvia Hansman is director of the lesser-known YIVO chapter in Buenos Aires. She’s an historian, translator of Yiddish manuscrupts and archivist with 30 years experience leading archival research projects in the USA and Argentina.
The YIVO chapter was founded in Buenos Aires at the same time the headquarters in Vilnius and chapters in Berlin and New York were founded, back in 1925.
The lecture is free and open to the public, and will be in English. For more information in Lithuanian, click here.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Thursday, August 7
Place: Second floor, National Library, Gedimino prospect no. 51 Vilnius
The Kiryat Ono Youth Orchestra from Israel capped off their concert tour in Lithuania with a performance last week at the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon Jewish Historical Museum in Vilnius.
Earlier they played Palanga, Kaunas and other venues in Vilnius. The Kaunas concert celebrated the 135th birthday of the birth of Volf Kagan, Lithuanian volunteer soldier in the battles for independence in the early 20th century and chronicler of Jewish life and the Holocaust in Lithuania.
In Vilnius the LJC’s Viljamas Žitkauskas who is also a qualified tour guide showed the young musicians around the city and the remains of Jewish Vilna. They then sampled menu items from the soon-to-open Kosher Kesher restaurant before the concert at the Tolerance Center.
he Vilnius Jewish Public Library will hold a memorial for the death of library founder director Žilvinas Bieliauskas who passed away one year ago. The memorial ceremony will include the unveling of a plaque in the library and a screening of a documentary film about Žilvinas Bieliauskas’s life.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Monday, July 28
Place: Vilnius Jewish Public Library, Gedimino prospect no. 24, Vilnius