Learning – Page 60 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Grant Gochin Brings New Suit against Genocide Center

South African born Los Angeles-based Litvak Grant Gochin is bringing another lawsuit against Lithuania’s Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania, or Genocide Center, over the latter’s mendacious claims Lithuania Nazi collaborator Jonas Noreika actually let an underground anti-Nazi network to rescue Jews. Gochin says Noreika was directly responsible for the murder of his relatives in Šiauliai and calls Genocide Center apologies and equivocations Holocaust denial.

2022-02-232022-02-23

Snapshots of Last Friday’s Kabbalat Shabat

Progressive Rabbi Nathan Alfred from Israel led a Kabbalat Shabat ceremony with about 50 members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community including our seniors and families with children. In the afternoon prior he attended the LJC Seniors Club Abi Men Zet Zich and sang the hymns to usher in the Sabbath. One of our oldest members, Libė Britaniskina, lit the Sabbath candles and the meeting concluded with songs in Hebrew and Yiddish. He led the prayer service and delivered the weekly Torah portion.

2022-02-21

Lithuanian State Radio to Air Documentary on Young Jews Who Left for Israel in 1991

LRT Radio-Documentary: An Unknown Story from 1991

On the last two Sundays in February Lithuanian State Radio listeners will have the opportunity to hear an extraordinary two-part radio documentary called “Roots: The Story of One Journey.” This story involves a group of about 27 children who left Lithuania in 1991 to study in Israel.

“We immediately listened up when we heard from historian Violeta Davoliūtė about children who travelled abroad at those times without their parents,” writer Rimantas Kmita recalled. He and the journalists Vaida Pilibaitytė and Vita Ličytė produced the documentary. “Right away we were unable to understand who and how. Why didn’t their parents travel with them? How did these high school students live there by themselves? Back in those times when there were no mobile telephones or internet [in Lithuania]? Why did they send them there at all? What did they do there, where did they live, how did they adapt, what sort of lives did they have? Our imaginations immediately began painting all sorts of different stories and dramas.”

The radio documentary made in cooperation with the Goethe institute in Vilnius tells the stories of five adolescents from the period: Judita, Laurina, Nira, Rašella and Rananas. It includes recollections by the organizers of the trips, Daumantas Todesas and Ilja Bereznickas. Ilja Bereznickas escorted a group of students to Israel at the time.

2022-02-182022-02-18

Chess Classes for Children

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Rositsan and Maccabi Elite Chess and Checkers Club will hold classes to teach children chess from 5:30 to 6:30 P.M. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Virginijus Dumbrauskas will be the instructor. Registration is required by calling +370 676 07907. The classes will take place at the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius and by internet.

2022-02-18

Israeli Dance Club Rekudim

The Israeli dance club Rekudim will meet on Sundays from 11:00 A.M. to 12 noon for beginners and from noon to 1:30 P.M. for more advanced dancers. Julija Patašnik will teach the classes. For more information call +370 569 60512.

2022-02-18

Seasonal Jewish Dishes for Spring

As spring approaches, educator Natalja Cheifec invites the public to learn more about traditional Jewish holidays and dishes in a Zoom lecture at 5:30 P.M. on February 17.

To receive Zoom credentials, click here.

#NataljosEdukacijos

Facebook announcement here.

2022-02-17

Šiauliai Resident Ida Vileikienė Donates Medals to Museum

Ida Vileikienė [was] scheduled to donate Lithuanian and Yad Vashem medals awarded to her adoptive parents Zofija and Adolfo Staškas to a local museum at a ceremony there on THursday, February 10.

Ida Vileikienė is one of only a handful of surviving city residents who were imprisoned in the Šiauliai ghetto. She was born in the ghetto in the summer of 1942. Following several operations to murder the children of the Šiauliai ghetto, her parents Aaron and Liuba Rozengard sought a safe haven for their daughter and turned her over to Zofija. The Staškas family protected and raised them.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Photo album on facebook here.

2022-02-15

Lithuanian Parliamentary Speaker Visits Israel

Lithuanian speaker of parliament Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen toured Yad Vashem and opened an honorary Lithuanian consulate in Netanya Monday. During her visit she met with Israeli president Isaac Herzog and Knesset speaker Mickey Levy.

She plans to visit Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh in the occupied territories as well, and to attend a round-table discussion with Palestinian women’s organizations. The trip to Israel and the occupied territories is scheduled from February 6 to 10.

She pledged Lithuanian support to Israel in the international arena.

2022-02-10

Šiauliai’s First Professional Photographer Reveals Interwar World

The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community is hosting an exhibit of photographs from their archive by Sošana Zaksaitė, the city’s first professional photographer. Zaksaitė’s photos capture Jewish life in Šiauliai before the Holocaust.

This is the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community’s second exhibit of Zaksaitė’s photography.

Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community chairman Sania Kerbelis says the current exhibit continues where the last one left off. The Community has a digitized collection of Zaksaitė’s work numbering around 300 photos.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2022-02-10

Panevėžys Jewish Community Receives an Extraordinary Guest

The Panevėžys Jewish Community received an unusual guest on January 26: modern art genius from South Africa William Kentridge-Geffen and wife.

The artist was invited to Lithuania to participate in the “Kaunas, Cultural Capital of Europe 2022” program. An exhibition of his work is now showing at the M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum.

Kentridge-Geffen is an intellectual and a person who causes others to think and feel. His sources of inspiration range from science to literature and his artistic methods are the most varied, from sketches with coal to painting, textiles, animated films and opera productions, demonstrating his broad education and broad field of interests.

William Kentridge-Geffen said Lithuania made a deep impression on him because of its natural beauty and architectural legacy. He said with obvious emotion:

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Happy Birthday to Aleksandras Rutenbergas

Aleksandras Rutenbergas celebrated his 75th birthday Monday.

We wish our always active member a very happy birthday, good health and good times. Aleksandras, your contribution to maintaining Jewish heritage is great. You helped build the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon Museum at the site of the former theater there. You were always there in the middle when there was work to be done. You introduced Europe to Litvak heritage, organizing two exhibitions of Vilnius ghetto posters in Padua and Strasbourg.

We would like to express our great respect for your good work and your tolerance.

Mazl tov. Bis 120!

2022-02-082022-02-08

Art Classes

The Raimondas Savickas School of Art and the Lithuanian Jewish Community invite you to attend art classes under the tutelage of Raimondas Savickas, including drawing, painting and art history basics. Color and form composition, still life, sketching, life-drawing–these are just some of the topics to be covered. Classes will be held on Sundays starting February 6. To register call 8 699 63 522 or send a letter to savickogalerija@gmail.com

2022-02-032022-02-03

Sergei Liser Exhibit Opens

The opening of an exhibition of paintings by Sergei Liser called “Išlikę indai” [Surviving Vessels] was held January 30 at the Bagel Shop Café at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius with the painter and his family, many friends and some famous artists. LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Vilnius Art Academy rector and teacher Ieva Skauronė and LJC programs director Žana Skudovičienė welcomed visitors at the event.

“Surviving Vessels is my second individual exhibit. It’s strange tales about the history of dishes where the fates of people as well as dishes are intertwined. Dishes, like people, change in appearance over time–they mature, grow old and die, they change color and form, they wear out,” Sergei Liser said. “But sometimes they become members of the family, preserving important memories and pass biographies and stories on to us. And for that, we love and honor them, even when they get grey and old, break down and become dysfunctional.”

The exhibit will run till February 28 and the paintings are available for purchase.

2022-02-02

Project “Young Leaders of the Jewish and Roma Communities for the Preservation of Historical Memory and Justice”

The year 2021 reminded us all of the suffering and misfortune the people of Lithuania had to live through in the 20th century, finding themselves at the intersection of the interests of the world’s great powers. There were commemorations, conferences and exhibitions throughout Lithuania. Even so, we haven’t done all our homework to insure the preservation of historical memory and teaching the younger generation a deeper sense of history don’t merely become annual events, but an inalienable part of national politics where all institutions work towards a common goal in a coordinated way, so that the combined resources of the state and society work together according to a clear strategy.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Roma Social Center are beginning the implementation of a project called Young Leaders of the Jewish and Roma Communities for the Preservation of Historical Memory and Justice organized by Germany’s EVZ Foundation aimed at teaching the public the importance of the history of the Roma and Jewish communities with the goal of including and engaging the younger generation of both communities.

Do members of these communities feel safe living in their own country?

2022-02-022022-02-02

Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe on Šnipiškės Cemetery

PRESS RELEASE by the Committee for the Protection of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe
(CPJCE)
January 18, 2022

The Lithuanian Government reaffirms its commitment to follow CPJCE guidelines on future plans of the Sports Palace Building situated in the Snipiskes Jewish cemetery in Vilnius.

The future function of the existing Sports Palace Building was discussed at a meeting held in Vilnius on November 25, 2021, between first deputy chancellor Mr. Rolandas Krisciunas, accompanied by his working team, and Mrs. Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, together with Rabbi H. Gluck OBE and Rabbi Y. Schlesinger representing the CPJCE.

Rabbi Gluck pointed out that regardless what the future plans hold, the Government must respect the agreements signed between the Government and the CPJCE in 2009 and 2015 and therefore no movement of soil is allowed in the entire cemetery area, and the Government should continue to work hand-in-hand with CPJCE to ensure the safeguarding of the cemetery and other cemeteries in the framework of the halachic guidelines.

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Lithuanian Prime Minister Talks about Jewish Legacy in Radio Interview

LRT.lt: This interview is taking place on January 27, which is International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. This topic is important to you, you took part in the Road of Memory procession several times if I recall correctly. The topic of the Holocaust is sparking a great many discussions in Lithuania and it’s clear we haven’t answered many questions. Have we, Lithuania, as a state, bearing in mind the entire history, have we commemorated sufficiently the victims and rescuers?

Lithuanian prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė: I think we haven’t fully realized over all what Jews mean in Lithuanian history. … The very scope, the understanding that 200,000 people, that the residents of the towns were in the majority the large Jewish communities which simply disappeared, someone took and wiped 200,000 people out of the picture. I came to that realization rather late.
…
Regarding the Palace of Sports, it has its own specific features because it is a building which is [protected] cultural heritage, nothing new may be built there, it can only be commemorated and put to public use. I won’t hide that there are people who say we should let this building fall into ruin because there are so many off-limit areas, so let the building fall down of its own accord. This is a difficult decision, to wait for the building to fall down in the middle of the city. I don’t think we should do this, but I also don’t think some other kind of application would meet with great support.

2022-01-28

Holocaust Distortion Is the Real Challenge Today

Eastern Europe’s post-Soviet “new democracies” have taken to falsely equating Communist and Nazi regimes and denying the role they played in the genocide

Last week a minor miracle occurred, at of all places the United Nations. For only the second time since the establishment of Israel, the General Assembly adopted a resolution sponsored by the Jewish state. In fact, the support for the resolution was so overwhelming that it was approved by consensus, meaning that it passed without a country by country vote, with the only objection registered in the 193 country body by (surprise, surprise) the Iranians.

The resolution itself deserves scrutiny. It expresses concern over “the growing prevalence of Holocaust denial or distortion through the use of information and communications technologies,” and urges all UN members to “reject, without any reservation, any denial or distortion of the Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or in part, or any activities to this end.” It also called upon all UN members “to develop educational programs that will inculcate future generations with the lessons of the Holocaust in order to help to prevent future acts of genocide.”

Symbolically, the resolution was passed on the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, at which 15 leading Nazi officials and SS operatives were informed of the decision to launch the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question,” and the details of its implementation.

Full article here.

2022-01-28

Resurrection of the Palace of Sports: Could It Become a Jewish Memorial?

On International Holocaust Day Lithuanian prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė told LRT.lt the Palace of Sports complex in Vilnius could become a memorial to Jews. For more than a decade now there has been consideration on how to renovate this historical building of brutalist architecture. The main idea was to create a modern conference center, but the Government might not go along with this now.

The building has a unique roof and is an example of brutalism [Soviet architecture]. If there are even a few sites in the Lithuanian capital where it’s possible to travel back through time in an instant, the Palace of Sports is one of them. Abandoned and apparently forgotten, although it once throbbed with life.

Many Lithuanian music stars performed on its stage and festivals and plays were held there.

In 1989 while the USSR still existed the group Sonic Youth performed there.

The Lithuanian independence movement Sąjūdis held its founding conference there.

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