Learning

Vilnius Approves Restoration of Jewish Street

Vilnius Approves Restoration of Jewish Street

MadeinVilnius.lt

The city of Vilnius wants to reconstruct historical Žydų or Jewish street and decorate the territory of the former Great Synagogue with architectural accents recalling the 16th century. The Vilnius municipality and the Vilniaus Planas group of architects back in May presented the public proposed projects for the restoration of Žydų street and the Shulhoyf. The Vilnius city municipality approved a project this week.

The contours of historical Jewish street were established more precisely according to the location of fragments of street paving boards discovered. The current street trajectory has changed from the historical one and the proposal is to return it to its original course through the deconstruction and removal of existing street and sidewalk pavement. The paving stones on Stiklių street, which becomes Žydų street, would continue on into Žydų street, according to the current plan.

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Judith Tsik Was Born July 7 in Gargždai

Judith Tsik Was Born July 7 in Gargždai

The Yiddish poetess Judith Tsik, also known as Yehudis and Yudis and the pen-name Judika, was born July 7, 1898, in Gargždai, Lithuania.

Encyclopaedia Judaica:

YUDIKA

YUDIKA (Yudis (Judith ) Tsik; 1898–1988), poetess. She was born in Gorzhd (Gargždai), Lithuania. Poverty forced her family to send Tsik to live with an aunt in Eastern Prussia, then annexed to Germany.

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Kaunas Jewish Community Members Tour Western Lithuania

Kaunas Jewish Community Members Tour Western Lithuania

One weekend last June members of the Kaunas Jewish Community made a tour of Western Lithuania. Our guides included Monika from Švėkšna, Živilė from Šilutė, Raimondas from Preila and Rasa from Klaipėda, all of whom taught us about this wonderful region surrounded by water. They explained the rich and painful history of the land.

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Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Netflix Hit Stranger Things Slammed for Nazi Prison

Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Netflix Hit Stranger Things Slammed for Nazi Prison

by Emma Myers

Netflix has come under fire for using the sites of past atrocities as locations or inspiration for its nostalgic hit show Stranger Things, including a plan to let fans book a themed cell in a former Holocaust prison on AirBnB.

Two of the locations in its fourth season–the final episodes of which were released last week–have dark roots in the real world.

Russian prison scenes were filmed in a former Lithuanian prison used by Nazis during the Holocaust while the show’s fictitious mental hospital was inspired by an infamous U.S. asylum with a similar name.

Mental health and Jewish advocates have criticized the streaming giant for what they see as exploitation of a brutal history. Both locations are also now tourist attractions.

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Presidential Palace Reception on Coronation of Mindaugas Day

Presidential Palace Reception on Coronation of Mindaugas Day

Photo: Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and son Rafaelis attended the reception. Photo by J. Stasevičius courtesy Lithuanian State Radio and Television.

The Lithuanian president invited special guests to attend a reception at the presidential palace compound Wednesday to mark Coronation of Mindaugas Day, the day chosen by historians and others to celebrate the coronation Lithuania’s first and only king, Mindaugas, in A.D. 1253 with a crown sent by Pope Innocent IV.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Story of King Mindaugas in brief here.

New Condo Ad in Kaunas: “Lietūkis: A Building with History”

New Condo Ad in Kaunas: “Lietūkis: A Building with History”

A building built between the two world wars on Vytautas prospect in Kaunas is now undergoing renovation. The architect was Karolis Reisneris, the same architect who designed the Church of the Assumption in Kaunas. Advertisements to purchase apartments have caused controversy because of the phrase “Lietūkis: A Building with History,” recalling the Lietūkis garage massacre in Kaunas in late June of 1941.

Artist Paulina Eglė Pukytė spotted the advertisement on facebook and was surprised by it.

“If the ad campaign is mentioning history, then how can it ignore completely some of the blackest pages of 20th century history connected with the word Lietūkis? The advertisement suggests ‘touching history.’ How should we touch it, and which history?” she said to 15min.lt.

Between the two world wars the compound word “Lietūkis,” made up of Lietuva or Lithuania, shortened to Liet-, followed by ūkis, meaning economy, farm or household, was the name adopted by the Union of Lithuanian Agricultural Cooperatives, which operated in Kaunas from 1923 to 1940. Their headquarters were located at no. 43 on Vytautas prospect. The daylight pogrom and mass murder of Jews was perpetrated at the garage, actually an automobile service and repair station, located on Miško street in Kaunas and still known as the Lietūkis garage, despite abolition of the Lietūkis organization, the Union of Lithuanian Agricultural Cooperatives, prior to that.

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Free Tango Lessons at Israeli Street Food Kiosk

Free Tango Lessons at Israeli Street Food Kiosk

The Cvi in the Park Israeli street food kiosk is hosting free tango dancing lessons open to everyone at the park across the street from the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius at 7:00 P.M. on July 5. The vocalist Eudardo will perform tango music from Latin America and the Argentine.

Program:

7:00 P.M. – 7:45 P.M. Public tango lesson
8:00 P.M. First portion of concert (Argentine and Latin American tango music)
8:30 P.M. Milonga (tango dances)
9:00 P.M. Second portion of concert
10:00 P.M. Finale.

Painted in Sound: An Interview with Samuel Bak

Painted in Sound: An Interview with Samuel Bak

by Karolis Vyšniauskas, photographs by Ieva Lygnugarytė, sound engineer Adomas Zubė

Samuel Bak is a miraculous survivor of Vilnius Ghetto. Now 88 at his studio in Massachusetts, the prolific painter recalls lost Jewish life in Vilnius for a NARA podcast.

For many decades Samuel Bak didn’t want to come back to Vilnius. It is the city where his father, grandparents and even his best friend, a child at the time, were killed.

But eventually through an initiative by local Lithuanians he returned to the place which formed his childhood memories. Now Vilnius hosts the Samuel Bak Museum, to which the painter has donated more than 50 of his works.

Full text and audio file of interview here.

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Lithuanian Makabi Preparing for 21st World Maccabiah Games

Lithuanian Makabi Preparing for 21st World Maccabiah Games

The Makabi Lithuanian athletics club is training intensively for taking part in the 21st World Maccabiah Games to take place between July 12 and July 26 in Israel. This will be the ninth World Maccabiah Games where the Lithuanian Makabi delegation will compete under the tutelage of president Semionas Finkelšteinas.

The delegation includes 23 people of whom 17 are athletes, 2 trainers (chess and swimming) and 4 coaches. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky is planning to attend the opening ceremony with the Lithuanian Makabi team. The entire team is expecting to make a good showing and to make new contacts and friends as well as learning about the country and culture in the host country, Israel.

Photos: The European Maccabi Games held in Dusseldorf from September 2 to 5, 2021, where all six Lithuanian Makabi competitors won medals.

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One Hundred and Seven Years Late for Dinner

One Hundred and Seven Years Late for Dinner

by Grant Gochin

When your grandmother’s last words make it clear that she’s not who you thought she was, you are willing to move all the mountains in Europe to get to the truth

Dinner between cousins was scheduled for Shabbat on Friday, May 14, 1915. How was I to know that the Shabbos meal never took place? Without warning, Russian forces launched a genocidal mass deportation of Baltic Jews deep into Russia. Families were torn apart, lives were destroyed and communities of Jews devastated.

The first inkling I had was on my grandmother’s deathbed. Her final lucid words to me were: “I wish I knew my name. I wish I knew who my family was.” We thought we knew her name–Bertha Lee Arenson. We were wrong.

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Fayerlakh Jewish Song and Dance Ensemble Celebrates 50th Birthday

Fayerlakh Jewish Song and Dance Ensemble Celebrates 50th Birthday

The Jewish song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh celebrated their 50th birthday on Sunday, June 19, at the Polish House of Culture in Vilnius with performances by musicians, singers and dancers.

The group formed back in the early 70s within the general milieu of Jewish, Lithuanian, Russian and Polish volunteer collectives, including the Yiddish-language People’s Theater. Many of the Jewish volunteer cultural groups–a choir, vocalists, a dance troupe, actors and personnel from the People’s Theater and a popular stage band–later immigrated to Israel and formed the Anakhnu Kan ensemble there. 1971 was also the year Jewish musician Yasha Magid founded a vocal and instrumental group. By 1972 this group had formed its core of enthusiastic musicians and the dance troupe, and held their first concert. That’s the story of how Fayerlakh, at the time the only Jewish song and dance ensemble throughout the Soviet Union, formed in Vilnius.

Vytautas Bruveris’s Presentation at Fifth World Litvak Congress

Vytautas Bruveris’s Presentation at Fifth World Litvak Congress

Lithuanian journalist Vytautas Bruveris gave a presentation at the Fifth World Litvak Congress held in Vilnius last month called “Jews in Lithuania: A Still-Undiscovered or an Already-Lost Shared History?”:

Many here have spoken about the war in the Ukraine. That’s natural, because it is continuation and horrific metastasis of the same story we are all talking about. I would like to talk about a different aspect, however, about empathy. Lithuanian society is showing they are very capable of human empathy and solidarity. We see that especially clearly in the huge and praise-worthy movement to receive war refugees from the Ukraine.

A question arises in this context, however, for me: is it not true that Lithuanian society are most able to feel empathy for those whom they understand as their own people, as participants of the same history?

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Jews of Kaunas Honor Rescuers

Jews of Kaunas Honor Rescuers

On June 9 the Kaunas Jewish Community honored those who rescued Jews from the Holocaust and their family members at an informal gathering.

“When you save one person, you save an entire world,” Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas said.

Child Born in Basement

Several dozen people came to the dinner at the Višta Puode restaurant in Kaunas. They shared their thoughts and impressions and generally chatted. There were songs performed in Yiddish and Hebrew using the Lithuanian folk instrument the kanklės, saxophone and harpsichord. Juozas Straupis was there with his granddaughter Monika. He had only just turned 4 when his mother and father, Bronislava and Juozas, later named Righteous Gentiles, rescued 24 people. They took seven into their home and found safe places for the others among their neighbors. Priests and the community helped take care of these people.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Faina Kukliansky: June 14 Recalls Agony of All Lithuanian Citizens

Faina Kukliansky: June 14 Recalls Agony of All Lithuanian Citizens

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky participated in a commemoration at the Lithuanian parliament to mark the Day of Mourning and Hope and the Day of Occupation and Genocide, and also attended a ceremony at a memorial in Naujoji Vilnia.

“Lithuanian Jews didn’t just experience the tragedy of the Holocaust, but also the repressions of the Soviet regime. The system sought to do away with the Jewish national spirit and the values. All sorts of means were used to achieve this, including the deportations already mentioned, but also communal and personal property seizures, the monument at Ponar blown up because it bore an inscription in Yiddish, synagogues nationalized and the closure of the YIVO institute. The Sovietization of the educational system dealt a huge blow to Jews, with private and communal schools banned. Some of the Jewish schools were destroyed, others were made into state schools where Hebrew was no longer taught and the traditional ethnic curricula–Jewish curricula–formed over many years were abolished. In their place new subjects were introduced, including mandatory Russian language and classes on the constitution of the USSR. The goal was obvious: to erase and replace the identity of the Jewish people. So when we talk about these horrific days in June, we are talking about a tragedy for Lithuanian citizens, no matter what their ethnic identity,” chairwoman Kukliansky said.

June 14 to 18 are remembered in Lithuania as an especially brutal part of history which destroyed the lives of many people of Lithuania, including Lithuanians, Jews, Poles and Russians. There is a public misconception the deportations during those days in 1941 only affected ethnic Lithuanians. Actually more than 3,000 Jews from Lithuania were among the deportees. The Lithuanian Jewish Community marks this painful anniversary annually in common with all the people of Lithuania and we will not forget the pain inflicted on Lithuania during this period in 1941.

Guided Tour of Gedimino Prospect Followed by Sabbath Ceremony

Guided Tour of Gedimino Prospect Followed by Sabbath Ceremony

Jewish tour guide Mark Psonic will lead a walking tour of Vilnius’s main street, Gedimino prospect, on June 17 as part of a larger event being held by the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s Gesher and Kaveret Clubs.

Those wishing to take the tour will assemble at the bell tower of the Cathedral in central Vilnius at 6:00 P.M. Friday. The walking tour will conclude at the Cvi in the Park Israeli street food kiosk located in the former Petras Cvirka square across the street from the LJC, where the Sabbath will be ushered in in the traditional manner.

The cost per person is five euros with registration by internet till June 15 and no later. Send an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt to register.

Tzedekah Lecture

Tzedekah Lecture

Tzedakah or Ṣedaqah, literally “righteousness” in ancient Hebrew, is the duty to charity in Judaism, often directed towards coreligionists living in poverty.

The Talmud says mercy is an essential Jewish characteristic, and that the rich man has a duty to give and the poor man a duty to receive. Giving charity isn’t so much a burden as a privilege and a mitzvah.

During this lecture Natalja Cheifec will present various aspects of tzedekah, including why we are obligated to give, to whom are we obligated to give, when charity should be given, how much should be given, how the giver should behave towards the receiver, charity and numerology, and others.

The lecture and discussion will take place via internet at 5:30 P.M. on June 16, most likely in Lithuanian and/or Russian. Register here: https://bit.ly/3K73kEE

Lithuanian Roots of Holocaust Denial and Distortion

Lithuanian Roots of Holocaust Denial and Distortion

by Evaldas Balčiūnas

Reading through the writings of various Lithuanian historians engaged in “historical memory policy” (an interesting term recalling totalitarian order in and of itself), texts which distort and even deny the Holocaust, I often wonder when it began. It began before the mass murder of Jews in Lithuania.

For instance, the Lithuanian Activist Front’s call to action “Dear enslaved brothers” appeared March 19, 1941, and was published in several versions. At least, two different versions have survived.

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